Theoretical spectroscopic characterization at low temperatures of detectable sulfur-organic compounds: Ethyl mercaptan and dimethyl sulfide

Highly correlated ab initio methods are used for the spectroscopic characterization of ethyl mercaptan (CH3CH2(32)SH, ETSH) and dimethyl sulfide (CH3(32)SCH3, DMS), considering them on the vibrational ground and excited torsional states. Since both molecules show non-rigid properties, torsional energy barriers and splittings are provided. Equilibrium geometries and the corresponding rotational constants are calculated by means of a composite scheme based on CCSD(T) calculations that accounts for the extrapolation to the complete basis set limit and core-correlation effects. The ground and excited states rotational constants are then determined using vibrational corrections obtained from CCSD/cc-pVTZ force-field calculations, which are also employed to determine anharmonic frequencies for all vibrational modes. CCSD(T) and CCSD force fields are employed to predict quartic and sextic centrifugal-distortion constants, respectively. Equilibrium rotational constants are also calculated using CCSD(T)-F12. The full-dimensional anharmonic analysis does not predict displacements of the lowest torsional excited states due to Fermi resonances with the remaining vibrational modes. Thus, very accurate torsional transitions are calculated by solving variationally two-dimensional Hamiltonians depending on the CH3 and SH torsional coordinates of ethyl mercaptan or on the two methyl groups torsions of dimethyl-sulfide. For this purpose, vibrationally corrected potential energy surfaces are computed at the CCSD(T)/aug-cc-pVTZ level of theory. For ethyl mercaptan, calculations show large differences between the gauche (g) and trans (t) conformer spectral features. Interactions between rotating groups are responsible for the displacements of the g-bands with respect to the t-bands that cannot therefore be described with one-dimensional models. For DMS, the CCSD(T) potential energy surface has been semi-empirically adjusted to reproduce experimental data. New assignments are suggested for the methyl torsion bands of ETSH and a reassignment is proposed for the infrared bands of DMS (0 3 → 0 4 and 1 0 → 1 1). Our accurate spectroscopic data should be useful for the analysis of the microwave and far infrared spectra of ETSH and DMS recorded, at low temperatures, either in laboratory or in the interstellar medium.