Bethe Surface of Liquid Water Determined by Inelastic X-Ray Scattering Spectroscopy and Electron Correlation Effects

By means of inelastic X-ray scattering spectroscopy. the generalized oscillator strength (COS) of liquid water has been experimentally determined over a range 0.69≦q≦3.59 a.u., where q is the momentum transfer. The Bethe surface was constructed from the COS, and the loss function, the dielectric response function, and the static structure factor were deduced. It was found that the GOS of liquid water is dominated by individual molecular properties over the q range studied, and that the static structure factor agrees quite well with a calculation including electron-electron correlation effects.