Abstract

Intramolecular proton transfer and hydrogen bonding are ubiquitous processes, occurring in nearly all realms of biology and chemistry. The model system for the investigation of such phenomena has been malonaidehyde, a molecule whose gas phase species exists predominately as a hydrogen-bonded enol tautomer with a finite barrier of 2000 cm⁻¹ separating two equivalent planar geometries. Numerous theoretical and experimental studies have shown that rapid interconversion between these conformers can occur through quantum mechanical tunneling, thereby leading to a characteristic doubling of all rovibronic features.

© 1997 Optical Society of America