A computer simulation of liquid water using the ab initio Matsuoka-Clementi-Yoshimine-Lie (MCYL) potential has been analyzed in comprehensive detail with use of pertinent auto-correlation and cross-correlation functions of the water molecule’s vibrational, rotational, and translational dynamics. The autocorrelation functions (ACF’s) of dynamical quantities such as atom velocity, center-of-mass velocity, molecular angular momentum, molecular angular velocity, molecular dipole moment, and molecular rotational velocity vectors have been computed with 3400 configurations generated in a simulation with 343 molecules in the laboratory frame and in the frame of the principal molecular moments of inertia. Furthermore, cross-correlation functions (CCF’s) of many different kinds have been computed in both frames in order to study in detail the mutual effects of vibration, rotation, and translation at the single-molecule level. In some respects the inclusion of vibrational effects in the MCYL potential does not significantly change the pattern of dynamical information summarized in these time correlation functions. The rotation-translation CCF’s which were obtained recently by Evans et al. from a rigid empirical model for the intermolecular pair potential energy in liquid water appear once more from the ab initio MCYL potential with the same symmetry and time dependence. This is a strong corroborative evidence for the correctness of the methods used in both cases. However, the inclusion of vibrational effects by Lie and Clementi in their MCYL potential leads in this work to considerable further insight obtained by a detailed study of cross-correlation functions between vibration and rotation and between vibration and center-of-mass translation.

• Received 30 April 1987

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.36.3935