Threshold photoelectron spectroscopy of the HO radical.

We report a synchrotron radiation vacuum ultraviolet photoionization study of the hydroperoxyl radical (HO), a key reaction intermediate in combustion and atmospheric chemistry as well as astrochemistry, using double imaging photoelectron photoion coincidence spectroscopy. The HO radical is formed in a microwave discharge flow tube reactor through a set of reactions initiated by F atoms in a CH/O/He gas mixture. The high-resolution threshold photoelectron spectrum of HO in the 11 eV-12 eV energy range is acquired without interferences from other species and assigned with the aid of theoretically calculated adiabatic ionization energies (AIEs) and Franck-Condon factors. The three vibrational modes of the radical cation HO , the H-O stretch, the H-O-O bend, and the O-O stretch, have been identified, and their individual frequencies are measured. In addition, the AIEs of the XA″ ground state and the aA' first excited electronic state of HO are experimentally determined at 11.359 ± 0.003 eV and 11.639 ± 0.005 eV, respectively, in agreement with high-level theoretically computed results. Furthermore, the former AIE value provides validation of thermochemical networks used to extract the enthalpy of formation of the HO radical.