Contents 3 Sigmatropic Reactions

This intuitive parallel can be best demonstrated by the example of electrocye-lic reactions for which the values of the similarity indices for conrotatory and disrotatory reactions systematically differ in such a way that a higher index or, in other words, a lower electron reorganisation is observed for reactions which are allowed by the Woodward-Hoffmann rules. In contrast to electrocyclic reactions for which the parallel between the Woodward-Hoffmann rules and the least motion principle is entirely straightforward, the situation is more complex for cycloadditions and sigmatropic reactions where the values of similarity indices for alternative reaction mechanisms are equal so that the discrimination between allowed and forbidden reactions becomes impossible. The origin of this insufficiency was analysed in subsequent studies [46,47] in which we demonstrated that the primary cause lies in the restricted information content of the index rRP. In order to overcome this certain limitation, a solution was proposed based on the use of the so-called second-order similarity index gRP [46]. This... 

For sigmatropic reactions, as for electrocyclic reactions and cycloadditions, the course of reaction can be predicted by counting the number of electrons involved and applying the selection rules. A comprehensive rationalization of all the stereochemical aspects of these reactions requires application of the frontier orbital or orbital symmetry approaches, and, at this point, we will content ourselves with pointing out the salient features of the more common reactions of this class. 

As can be seen from this Table, the original insufficiency of the index r is indeed remedied by the index g p. This result is very interesting since if we realize that the primary source of the increased information content of the index g p is the partial inclusion of electron correlation, then the discrimination between the allowed and forbidden reactions in these cases seems to suggest that certain delicateness of cycloadditions and sigmatropic reactions, which both belong to the class of the so-called multibond reactions [99], can be apparently related to the greater sensitivity of these reactions to the effects of electron correlation. This conclusion, together with the systematic analysis of the role of correlation effects in pericyclic reactivity will be discussed in more details in chapter 8. 

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