The proton momentum distribution in strongly H-bonded phases of water: a critical test of electrostatic models.

Water is often viewed as a collection of monomers interacting electrostatically with each other. We compare the water proton momentum distributions from recent neutron scattering data with those calculated from two electronic structure-based models. We find that below 500 K these electrostatic models, one based on a multipole expansion, which includes the polarizability of the monomers, are not able to even qualitatively account for the sizable vibrational zero-point contribution to the enthalpy of vaporization. This discrepancy is evidence that the change in the proton well upon solvation cannot be entirely explained by electrostatic effects alone, but requires correlations of the electronic states on the molecules involved in the hydrogen bonds to produce the observed softening of the well.

The vibrational proton potential in bulk liquid water and ice.

We present an empirical flexible and polarizable water model which gives an improved description of the position, momentum, and dynamical (spectroscopic) distributions of H nuclei in water. We use path integral molecular dynamics techniques in order to obtain momentum and position distributions and an approximate solution to the Schrodinger equation to obtain the infrared (IR) spectrum. We show that when the calculated distributions are compared to experiment the existing empirical models tend to overestimate the stiffness of the H nuclei involved in H bonds. Also, these models vastly underestimate the enormous increase in the integrated IR intensity observed in the bulk over the gas-phase value. We demonstrate that the over-rigidity of the OH stretch and the underestimation of intensity are connected to the failure of existing models to reproduce the correct monomer polarizability surface. A new model, TTM4-F, is parametrized against electronic structure results in order to better reproduce the polarizability surface. It is found that TTM4-F gives a superior description of the observed spectroscopy, showing both the correct redshift and a much improved intensity. TTM4-F also has a somewhat improved dielectric constant and OH distribution function. It also gives an improved match to the experimental momentum distribution, although some discrepancies remain.

On the origin of the redshift of the OH stretch in Ice Ih: evidence from the momentum distribution of the protons and the infrared spectral density.

Recent measurements of the momentum distribution in water and ice have shown that the proton is in a considerably softer potential in ice Ih than in water or the free monomer. This is broadly consistent with the large red shift observed in the vibrational spectrum. We show that existing water models, which treat the intramolecular potential as unchanged by the hydrogen bonding are unable to reproduce the momentum distribution. In addition, even if they can substantially explain the red shift they are unable to explain the large increase in intensity observed in the infrared spectrum in going from the monomer to ice Ih. We show that the inclusion of a bond dipole derivative term is essential to explain the observed intensities in the infrared spectrum. Though this term is partially responsible for the softening of the effective potential of the proton we show that best agreement with the observed momentum distribution requires a further softening of the harmonic component of the intramolecular potential. We introduce an efficient normal-mode molecular dynamics algorithm for calculating the momentum distribution with path-integrals.

Dynamics of water confined in single- and double-wall carbon nanotubes.

Using high-resolution quasielastic neutron scattering, we investigated the temperature dependence of single-particle dynamics of water confined in single- and double-wall carbon nanotubes with the inner diameters of 14+/-1 and 16+/-3 A, respectively. The temperature dependence of the alpha relaxation time for water in the 14 A nanotubes measured on cooling down from 260 to 190 K exhibits a crossover at 218 K from a Vogel-Fulcher-Tammann law behavior to an Arrhenius law behavior, indicating a fragile-to-strong dynamic transition in the confined water. This transition may be associated with a structural transition from a high-temperature, low-density (<1.02 gcm(3)) liquid to a low-temperature, high-density (>1.14 gcm(3)) liquid found in molecular dynamics simulation at about 200 K. However, no such dynamic transition in the investigated temperature range of 240-195 K was detected for water in the 16 A nanotubes. In the latter case, the dynamics of water simply follows a Vogel-Fulcher-Tammann law. This suggests that the fragile-to-strong crossover for water in the 16 A nanotubes may be shifted to a lower temperature.