Collective high frequency motions in liquid deuterium fluoride

Abstract

The collective motions in liquid deuterium fluoride (DF) have been investigated by neutron scattering motivated by a MD simulation, which predicted an optic-type mode at small momentum transfers. Spectra of the measured longitudinal current correlation function show two modes. The lower frequency one originates from acoustic-type movements. The intensity of the higher frequency excitation can be attributed to an out of phase motion of neighboring DF molecules, an optic-type mode. Both, the frequencies and the intensity distribution in momentum space agree well with the MD simulation. The widths of the experimental spectra exceed the widths from the MD simulation and indicate missing relaxation processes in the simulation. © 2008, Oldenbourg Verlag