In the book of Salinas the author says in chapter The Ideal Quantum Gas he says and I quote
The classical models of a gas of diatomic molecules (a rigid rotator in three dimensions, or a rotator with a vibrating axis) are unable to explain the thermal behavior of some quantities, as the specific heat at constant volume. The hamiltonian of a diatomic molecule may be written as a sum of several terms, associated with distinct degrees of freedom, and which do not couple in a first approximation $$\mathcal{H}_{mol} = \mathcal{H}_{translation}+\mathcal{H}_{electronic}+\mathcal{H}_{rotation}+\mathcal{H}_{vibration}+\dots$$
Then I have the following questions.
- The justification to maque the sum of the hamiltonians is that the degrees do not interact with one another?
- The dots should be used for more degrees of fredom. How many degrees of freedom are in the molecule? There is a spin term and what other degrees? This is a naive question, there are as many terms as we whant to make better and better aproximation to the model?