STRUCTURAL DETERMINATIONS USING SCALED MOMENTS OF INERTIA

$^{1}$ M.D. Harmony and W.H. Taylor, J. Mol. Spectrosc. 118, 163-173 (1986). $^{2}$ M.D. Harmony, R.J. Berry and W.H. Taylor, J. Mol. Spectrosc. (In press). $^{3}$ J.K. G. Watson, J. Mol. Spectrosc. 48, 479-502 (1973). $^{4}$ R.J. Berry and M.D. Harmony, J. Mol. Spectrosc. (In press).Author Institution: Department of Chemistry, The University of KansasRecently published work has shown the usefulness of scaled ground-state moments of inertia for structural $determinations.^{1,2}$ Based on a simplification of Watson's mass-depondence $method^{3}$, the procedure has been shown to yield structural parameters for small heavy-atom molecules that are more reliable than $r_{s}$ parameters and are very near to $r_{e}$ parameters. Procedures for extending the method to molecules containing hydrogen atoms will be described and evaluated for various small polyatomic molecules. Model force-field computations will be presented also to aid in understanding the range of validity of the method and to provide a theoretical framework for the empirical procedures