<!doctype html public "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//EN">
<html><head><style type="text/css"><!--
blockquote, dl, ul, ol, li { padding-top: 0 ; padding-bottom: 0 }
--></style><title>MOS 2/28/06</title></head><body>
<div><font face="Arial" size="+4" color="#000000">Seminar on<br>
</font><font face="Arial" size="+5" color="#000000"><b>Modern Optics
and Spectroscopy<br>
<br>
<br>
David Pratt</b>, University of Pittsburgh<br>
<br>
</font><font face="Arial" size="+4" color="#000000"><i><b>"Molecular
secrets from high resolution laser spectroscopy in the gas
phase"<br>
<br>
</b></i></font><font face="Arial" size="+5" color="#000000">February
28, 2006<br>
12:00 - 1:00 p.m.</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="+5" color="#000000">34-401<br>
<br>
<br>
</font><font face="New York" size="+3" color="#000000">Abstract:<br>
<br>
</font><font face="New York" size="+2"
color="#000000">Eigenstate-resolved electronic spectroscopy of large
molecules is a rapidly developing technique in the field of
chemistry. This talk will describe several applications of this
technique to both structural and dynamical problems in chemistry.
These include studies of the geometries of large molecules and how
they change when they absorb UV light, elucidation of the
intermolecular potential energy surfaces of a wide variety of van der
Waals and hydrogen bonded complexes involving water, and the direct
observation, in the frequency domain, of several dynamical processes
including tunneling, solvent reorganization, and level mixing<i>
via</i> axis tilting, as well as IVR, ISC, and vibrational
predissociation. Recent studies of such spectra in the
presence of electric fields (the Stark effect) and the measurement of
the induced dipole moment of an isolated molecule also will be
described. I will close with a brief description of the
applications of these techniques to biologically relevant molecules in
the gas phase.</font></div>
</body>
</html>