An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics
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Of or pertaining to → vibration. → vibrational mode.

→ vibration; → -al.

The energy due to the vibration of the molecules making up atoms (→ molecular vibration). A molecule in space can have energies in various forms: → rotational energy, vibrational energy, or electronic energy. These energies of molecules are → quantized and a particular molecule can exist in different rotational and vibrational → energy levels. The molecules can move from one level to another level only by a jump involving a finite amount of energy. → Quantum mechanics predicts that any molecule can never have zero vibrational energy, that is atoms can never be completely at rest relative to each other. The harmonically oscillating molecules can undergo vibrational changes determined by simple selection rules obtained from → Schrödinger equation.

→ vibrational; → energy.

The frequency at which the atoms in a molecule vibrate. The frequencies of → molecular vibrations in diatomic molecules are in the order of 10^-12 to 10^-14 Hz. In such molecules, the only → vibrational mode available is along the bond. More complicated molecules have many types of vibration and stretching modes.

→ vibrational; → frequency.

Any of the ways in which a → molecule vibrates. Each vibrational mode has a different → frequency frequency. The number of vibrational modes of a molecule is determined by the number of atoms in it. The number of vibrational modes for a non-linear molecule is 3N - 6, where N is the number of atoms making up the molecule. For a linear molecule it is 3N - 5.

→ vibrational; → mode.

A transition between two → quantized  → levels of a → molecule that have different vibrational energies.

→ vibrational; → transition.

A slight change in the → energy level of a → molecule due to → vibrational transition and/or → rotational transition.

→ vibrational; → rotational; → transition.