Water Dimer Rotationally Resolved Millimeter-Wave Spectrum Observation at Room Temperature

Water dimers (H2O)(2) are believed to affect Earth's radiation balance and climate, homogeneous condensation, and atmospheric chemistry. Moreover, the pairwise interaction which binds the dimer appears to be of paramount importance for expounding a complete molecular description of the liquid and solid phases of water. However, there have been no secure, direct observations of water dimers at environmentally relevant temperatures despite decades of studies. We report the first unambiguous observation of the dimer spectrum recorded in equilibrium water vapor at room temperature. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.093001