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TODD C. MELVILLE, QICHI J. HU, JOHN W. HEPBURN, Department of Chemistry, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z1.
The spectroscopic technique Threshold Ion-Pair Production Spectroscopy (TIPPS) is applied for the first time to the isotopomers HCl/DCl. From the high-resolution TIPP spectra, the difference between the equilibrium bond dissociation energies of the isotopomers can be measured to better than 1 cm-1, and therefore an experimental estimate of the Born-Oppenheimer breakdown in the long range limit of the ground state potential curve is obtained. The experimental result from the present work is compared to a recent determination of the Born-Oppenheimer breakdown in HCl by Coxon and Hajigeorgiou. If time permits, similar work that is in progress on HF/DF will also be discussed.