Proton Transfer in Homodimers of Carboxylic Acids: The Rotational Spectrum of the Dimer of Acrylic Acid

The dimer of acrylic acid can exist in two forms, depending on the entgegen or zusammen orientations of the two allyl groups. The latter one (zusammen) has a permanent value of the μb dipole moment component, which allowed measuring its pulsed jet Fourier transform microwave (MW) spectrum. From the tunneling splitting, originating in the concerted proton transfer of the two carboxylic hydrogen atoms and measured for four isotopologues of such a bimolecule, we could determine the barrier and dynamics of the proton transfer.