Spectroscopic effects of conical intersections of molecular potential energy surfaces

A simple vibronic coupling model involving two electronic states and two vibrational modes is considered. The model is based on harmonic diabatic potentials and linear coupling of the diabatic electronic states. It is shown that the adiabatic electronic potential energy surfaces exhibit, in general, a conical intersection. The well known E ×E × E × B Jahn-Teller problems are contained as special cases. Using numerical methods the optical absorption spectrum is calculated exactly. Extremely complex vibronic spectra are obtained when the conical intersection occurs within the Franck-Condon (FC) zone. The exact vibronic spectra are compared with spectra calculated in the adiabatic and FC approximation. The genuine spectroscopic effects of conical intersections are revealed by a comparison with the results of standard one-dimensional vibronic coupling calculations. The presence of a conical intersection limits the applicability of the adiabatic and FC approximations much more strongly than in the one-dimensional case. The upper adiabatic electronic state is strongly affected by non-adiabatic coupling even when the point of intersection lies outside the FC zone. The relevance of these results for the calculation of molecular electronic spectra is briefly discussed.