Solving S.E. for rigid rotor (asymmetric top)

[christianjb]

Hi,
I'm looking to numerically solve the rotational Schrodinger eqn. for a molecule which I'm happy to treat as an internally rigid body.

The molecule will be in an external potential, so it's not a free rotor.

Does anyone have any advice or references for an easy derivation of
the K.E. operator? The rigid rotor page on Wikipedia has a derivation in terms of Euler angles, which I can maybe just about follow. Is this a good way to do this problem?

Also, is the solution analytic for the general asymmetric top? If so- I'd like to form basis functions from the free rotor solutions.

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[DrClaude]

This is treated in many books on molecular physics. See, for instance, W. Demtröder, Molecular Physics
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9783527618095