Magnetic Susceptibility of the H2O Molecule

Abstract

High‐resolution microwave spectroscopy has been used to determine the individual diagonal components of the magnetic‐susceptibility tensor of H₂O. The results are: ${\chi }_{\mathrm{xx}}{\text{\hspace{0.17em}=\hspace{0.17em}−\hspace{0.17em}12.1\hspace{0.17em}±\hspace{0.17em}1.6, χ}}_{\mathrm{yy}}{\text{\hspace{0.17em}=\hspace{0.17em}−\hspace{0.17em}13.5\hspace{0.17em}±\hspace{0.17em}2.0, χ}}_{\mathrm{zz}}\text{\hspace{0.17em}=\hspace{0.17em}−\hspace{0.17em}13.7\hspace{0.17em}±\hspace{0.17em}1.8}$ , all in units of 10⁻⁶ emu. The large uncertainties in these numbers arise from the small anisotropy in the magnetic susceptibility. Only a rough value of the molecular quadrupole moment can be derived from these data.