THEORY OF THE INTERACTION BETWEEN THE LATTICE VIBRATIONS AND THE ROTATIONAL MOTION IN SOLID HYDROGEN

Abstract

The effects of the interaction between the rotational motion of the molecules in solid hydrogen and the lattice vibrations, resulting from the anisotropic van der Waals forces, have been investigated theoretically. For the radial part of the anisotropic intermolecular potential an exp–6 model has been adopted. First, the effect of the lattice vibrations, and of the anistropic blowing up of the crystal by the zero-point lattice vibrations, is discussed. The effective anisotropic interaction resulting from averaging the instantaneous interaction over the lattice vibrations is calculated by assuming a Gaussian distribution for the modulation of the relative intermolecular separations by the lattice vibrations. Secondly, the displacement of the rotational levels due to the self-energy of the molecules in the lattice is calculated both classically and quantum mechanically, and the resulting shifts in the frequencies of the rotational transitions in solid hydrogen are given. Finally, the splitting of the rotational levels due to the anisotropy of the self-energy effect is calculated. The theory is applied to the calculation of the asymmetry of the S0(0) triplet in the rotational Raman spectrum of solid parahydrogen, and of the specific heat anomaly in solid hydrogen at low ortho-concentrations.