Probing Benzene in a New Way: High-Resolution Time-resolved Rotational Spectroscopy

Abstract

Precise values for the rotational constants of benzene in both the ground and the electronically excited state have been obtained by time-resolved rotational spectroscopy. A relative uncertainty on the order of 10^-5 for these constants has been achieved, while the absolute values are in excellent agreement with data from rotationally resolved optical spectroscopy. Thus benzene serves as a molecular benchmark for high-resolution rotational coherence spectroscopy (RCS) with the perspective that the influence of vibrations on the equilibrium structure could be studied for a medium-sized molecule by this method soon.