EFFECTIVE HYPERFINE-STRUCTURE FUNCTIONS OF AMMONIA

The hyperfine structure of the rotation-inversion ( v ₂ = 0⁺, 0⁻, 1⁺, 1⁻) states of the ¹⁴NH₃ and ¹⁵NH₃ ammonia isotopomers is rationalized in terms of effective (ro-inversional) hyperfine-structure (hfs) functions. These are determined by fitting to available experimental data using the Hougen's effective hyperfine-structure Hamiltonian within the framework of the non-rigid inverter theory. Involving only a moderate number of mass independent fitting parameters, the fitted hfs functions provide a fairly close reproduction of a large majority of available experimental data, thus evidencing adequacy of these functions for reliable prediction. In future experiments, this may help us derive spectroscopic constants of observed inversion and rotation-inversion transitions deperturbed from hyperfine effects. The deperturbed band centers of ammonia come to the forefront of fundamental physics especially as the probes of a variable proton-to-electron mass ratio.