MILLIMETER-WAVE SPECTROSCOPY OF S2Cl2: A CANDIDATE MOLECULE FOR THE DETECTION OF ORTHO-PARA TRANSITION

S2Cl2 is a candidate molecule for the detection of ortho-para transition, because the Cl atoms on the skewed position from the rotational principle axes give large off-diagonal terms in the quadrupole interaction, which can mix ortho and para states. In order to estimate the ortho-para mixing in a hyperfine-resolved rotational state, pure rotational transitions were measured by millimeter-wave spectroscopy using two different experimental set-ups. The transitions from the term value around 20 K was measured with a supersonic jet and those around 200 K were measured with a dry ice cooled gas cell. Hundreds of peaks were assigned for the naturally abundant S2Cl2 and S2ClCl isotopic species, and the rotational molecular constants including the fourth-order and sixth-order centrifugal distortion constants were determined. The hyperfine structures were partly resolved in some Q-branch transitions and those spectral patterns were well reproduced with the hyperfine constants determined by the previous FTMW spectroscopy in the cm-wave regiona. With the new molecular constants determined in this study and the previous hyperfine constants, it becomes possible to predict a more reliable ortho-para mixing ratio and to narrow down the possible candidate transitions in the mm-wave region for the detection of ortho-para transition.