TY - JOUR A1 - Pietzsch, Annette A1 - Hennies, Franz A1 - Miedema, Piter S. A1 - Kennedy, Brian A1 - Schlappa, Justine A1 - Schmitt, Thorsten A1 - Strocov, Vladimir N. A1 - Föhlisch, Alexander T1 - Snapshots of the Fluctuating Hydrogen Bond Network in Liquid Water on the Sub-Femtosecond Timescale with Vibrational Resonant Inelastic x-ray Scattering JF - Physical review letters N2 - Liquid water molecules interact strongly with each other, forming a fluctuating hydrogen bond network and thereby giving rise to the anomalous phase diagram of liquid water. Consequently, symmetric and asymmetric water molecules have been found in the picosecond time average with IR and optical Raman spectroscopy. With subnatural linewidth resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) at vibrational resolution, we take sub-femtosecond snapshots of the electronic and structural properties of water molecules in the hydrogen bond network. We derive a strong dominance of nonsymmetric molecules in liquid water in contrast to the gas phase on the sub-femtosecond timescale of RIXS and determine the fraction of highly asymmetrically distorted molecules. Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.114.088302 SN - 0031-9007 SN - 1079-7114 VL - 114 IS - 8 PB - American Physical Society CY - College Park ER -