Anharmonic effects in IR, Raman, and Raman optical activity spectra of alanine and proline zwitterions.

The difference spectroscopy of the Raman optical activity (ROA) provides extended information about molecular structure. However, interpretation of the spectra is based on complex and often inaccurate simulations. Previously, the authors attempted to make the calculations more robust by including the solvent and exploring the role of molecular flexibility for alanine and proline zwitterions. In the current study, they analyze the IR, Raman, and ROA spectra of these molecules with the emphasis on the force field modeling. Vibrational harmonic frequencies obtained with 25 ab initio methods are compared to experimental band positions. The role of anharmonic terms in the potential and intensity tensors is also systematically explored using the vibrational self-consistent field, vibrational configuration interaction (VCI), and degeneracy-corrected perturbation calculations. The harmonic approach appeared satisfactory for most of the lower-wavelength (200-1800 cm(-1)) vibrations. Modern generalized gradient approximation and hybrid density functionals, such as the common B3LYP method, provided a very good statistical agreement with the experiment. Although the inclusion of the anharmonic corrections still did not lead to complete agreement between the simulations and the experiment, occasional enhancements were achieved across the entire region of wave numbers. Not only the transitional frequencies of the C-H stretching modes were significantly improved but also Raman and ROA spectral profiles including N-H and C-H lower-frequency bending modes were more realistic after application of the VCI correction. A limited Boltzmann averaging for the lowest-frequency modes that could not be included directly in the anharmonic calculus provided a realistic inhomogeneous band broadening. The anharmonic parts of the intensity tensors (second dipole and polarizability derivatives) were found less important for the entire spectral profiles than the force field anharmonicities (third and fourth energy derivatives), except for a few weak combination bands which were dominated by the anharmonic tensor contributions.