Following up on an earlier post about how indirect spin couplings in NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) may be a signature of the covalent character of hydrogen bonds I have been reading a range of papers on the subject. The Figure below shows how the calculated O-O nuclear coupling J correlates with the donor-acceptor distance [another example of an empirical correlation I have been highlighting].
The figure is taken from a 2000 JACS by Del Bene, Perera, and Bartlett.
One thing that is frustrating about reading most of these chemistry NMR papers is that they never explain the basic physics involved.
The Oxford Chemistry primer on NMR by Peter Hore has a useful section on Indirect coupling. He gives a nice simple argument explaining how [from 2nd order perturbation theory] the H-H coupling in the hydrogen molecule is roughly J ~ A^2/E where A is the proton hyperfine interaction and E is the energy gap between the ground state and the lowest triplet state. This estimate gives J ~ 300 Hz, which is comparable to the actual value. Basically, when one flips one proton spin the A flips the electron spin, converting the ground state spin singlet into the excited triplet state.
The figure is taken by a nice webpage by Hans Reich
I have a copy of Schlicter's NMR book, if you want to borrow it. It's on one of the bookshelves in my office. It's the same color as Fulde's book (from the same publisher).
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