Hannover 2016 – scientific programme

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MO: Fachverband Molekülphysik

MO 3: Electronic Spectroscopy 1

MO 3.4: Talk

Monday, February 29, 2016, 15:15–15:30, f102

Experimental study of the conformational space of a neurotransmitter: Serotonin — •Martin Wilke¹, Josefin Wilke¹, Christian Brand², and Michael Schmitt¹ — ¹Institute for Physical Chemistry I, Heinrich-Heine-University, Düsseldorf — ²Faculty of Physics, University of Vienna, Austria

The conformational space of the neurotransmitter serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine) has been studied in the ground and the first electronically excited state, using a combination of rotationally resolved electronic spectroscopy and ab initio theory. On the basis of the rotational constants, the excited state life times and the orientations of the transition dipole moments four conformers can be assigned. Furthermore a characteristic change of 230 cm⁻¹ was observed experimentally between the excitation energies of the Gpy(out)/anti and Gpy(out)/syn conformer. Changing the orientation of the ethyl amine side chain towards the Phenyl moiety leads to an increase of the excitation energy. Several reasons for this behaviour are discussed and an incremental system for the prediction of excitation energies of doubly substituted indoles is presented.