Quantum Electrodynamics Effects in Rovibrational Spectra of Molecular Hydrogen

The dissociation energies from all rovibrational levels of H-2 and D-2 in the ground electronic state are calculated with high accuracy by including relativistic and quantum electrodynamics (QED) effects in the nonadiabatic treatment of the nuclear motion. For D-2, the obtained energies have theoretical uncertainties of 0.001 cm(-1). For H-2 theta, similar uncertainties are for the lowest levels, while for the higher ones the uncertainty increases to 0.005 cm-1. Very good agreement with recent high-resolution measurements of the rotational v = 0 levels of H-2, including states with large angular momentum J, is achieved. This agreement would not have been possible without accurate evaluation of the relativistic and QED contributions and may be viewed as the first observation of the QED effects, mainly the electron self-energy, in a molecular spectrum. For several electric quadrupole transitions, we still observe certain disagreement with experimental results, which remains to be explained.