High sensitivity cavity ring down spectroscopy of NO2 between 7760 and 7917cm−1

The very weak absorption spectrum of the main isotopologue of nitrogen dioxide, 14N16O2, is investigated for the first time between 7760 and 7917 cm−1. The studied region corresponds to the highest energy range of the vibrational spectra of 14N16O2 investigated so far at high spectral resolution. The absorption spectra were recorded by very high sensitivity Continuous Wave-Cavity Ring Down Spectroscopy with a noise equivalent absorption of αmin≈5×10−11 cm−1. The spectrum results from the superposition of the rovibrational transitions of the 2ν1+5ν2+ν3, 2ν1+ν2+3ν3 and 5ν1+ν3 bands at 7790.9, 7888.2 and 7904.3 cm−1, respectively. The spectrum assignment and modeling were performed using the effective Hamiltonian approach, which involves altogether three bright – (2,5,1), (2,1,3) and (5,0,1) and three dark – (2,7,0), (2,3,2) and (5,2,0) states. As a result, 3020 rovibrational transitions were assigned including 51 extra lines of the 2ν1+3ν2+2ν3 and 5ν1+2ν3 bands. In this way, the overall set of 1494 spin-rotation energy levels were reproduced with an rms of 4.9×10−3 cm−1 for the (obs.−calc) deviations, leading to the determination of 66 fitted parameters. The effective Hamiltonian for the {(5,2,0), (2,3,2), (2,7,0), (2,5,1), (2,1,3), (5,0,1)} interacting states takes into account both the spin–rotation interactions within each vibrational state and C-type Coriolis and anharmonic resonances between different vibrational states, according to symmetry considerations. Indeed for NO2 the ( v , 1 v 2 ± 2 , v 3 ∓ 1 ) ↔ ( v , 1 v 2 , v 3 ) spin rotation energy levels are usually coupled through C-type Coriolis resonances, and accordingly the (2,7,0)↔(2,5,1)↔(2,3,2)↔(2,1,3) and (5,2,0)↔(5,0,1) interactions were included in the effective Hamiltonian model. Furthermore, these two blocks of interacting states are coupled by an additional C-type Coriolis and anharmonic resonances. Using the fitted values of the Hamiltonian parameters and the values of the 2ν1+5ν2+ν3, 2ν1+ν2+3ν3 and 5ν1+ν3 bands transition dipole moment operators determined from a fit of a selected set of experimental line intensities, a synthetic spectrum was generated for the entire investigated region and is provided as Supplementary material .