10min:
SILICON-PHOSPHORUS BONDING: LABORATORY DETECTION OF HPSiH2 EMPLOYING HIGH
RESOLUTION MICROWAVE SPECTROSCOPY.

VALERIO LATTANZI, M. C. MCCARTHY, P. THADDEUS, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, and School of Engineering and Applied Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138; AND SVEN THORWIRTH, Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, Bonn, Germany, and I. Physikalisches Institut, Universität zu Köln, Germany.

HPSiH2, the ground state isomer on the H3SiP potential energy surface, has been detected by means of Fabry-Pérot FT microwave spectroscopy. The laboratory search has been guided by theoretical structure calculations performed at the CCSD(T)/cc-pwCVQZ level of theory corrected for zero-point vibrational effects at the CCSD(T)/cc-pV(T+d)Z level. A mixture of silane and phosphine in a discharge supersonic molecular beam has been used to produce the new species, allowing the detection of the three lowest Ka=0 rotational transitions. The discovery has been confirmed by successful identification of the same transitions of HP29SiH2, HP30SiH2, and DPSiD2, at precisely the expected frequency shifts. The presence of other Si and some P bearing molecules in astronomical sources

suggests, that this molecule is a plausible candidate for radio astronomical detection.