Rotational temperature

The rotational temperature is commonly used in thermodynamics, to simplify certain equations. It has units of temperature and is defined as

\theta _{rot}=\frac{\bar{B}_{e}}{k_{B}}=\frac{\hbar ^{2}}{2k_{B}I}

Where \bar B is the rotational constant, and k is the Boltzmann constant, given in wavenumbers per kelvin (the value of this is ~ 0.695 cm−1/K).

The rotational temperature is used commonly when finding the rotational partition function. There is much more relating to these quantities in rotational spectroscopy and the article regarding the rotational constant.

See also