“…In a first step, single-point calculation on the MP2/6-311G** level were carried out to compare the ratio between the barrier heights of top 1 and top 2 with our experimental data. For these calculations the distances and angles from Guirgis et al (1) Investigations of Xu et al (8) and also our own attempts to determine a hindering barrier of molecules with low barrier (9,7,10) have shown that accuracy is much improved if a complete ab initio structure optimization is carried out at each rotation angle, keeping only ␣ 1 and ␣ 2 fixed. Therefore, we repeated the calculations in the same grid as before and allowed for structure relaxation.…”