Cross-over temperature

The experimental studies of a large number of low-temperature solid-phase reactions undertaken by many groups in 70s and 80s have confirmed the two basic consequences of the Goldanskii model, the existence of the low-temperature limit and the cross-over temperature. The aforementioned difference between quantum-chemical and classical reactions has also been established, namely, the values of k turned out to vary over many orders of magnitude even for reactions with similar values of Vq and hence with similar Arrhenius dependence. For illustration, fig. 1 presents a number of typical experimental examples of k T) dependence. 

In the first case the cross-over temperature is given by... 

This means that there is a cross-over temperature defined by (1.7) at which tunneling switches off , because the quasiclassical trajectories that give the extremum to the integrand in (2.1) cease to exist. This change in the character of the semiclassical motion is universal for barriers of arbitrary shape. 

Fig. 8. Arrhenius plot of dissipative tunneling rate in a cubic potential with Vq = Sficoo and r jlto = 0, 0.25 and 0.5 for curves 1-3, respectively. The cross-over temperatures are indicated by asterisks. The dashed line shows k(T) for the parabolic barrier with the same CO and Va-...

This formula, aside from the prefactor, is simply a one-dimensional Gamov factor for tunneling in the barrier shown in fig. 12. The temperature dependence of k, being Arrhenius at high temperatures, levels off to near the cross-over temperature which, for A = 0, is equal to ... 

That is, the exponential increase of the isotope effect with is determined by the difference of the zero-point energies. The cross-over temperature (1.7) depends on the mass by... 

The two-mode model has two characteristic cross-over temperatures corresponding with the freezing of each vibration. Above = hcoo/2k the dependence k(T) is Arrhenius, with activation energy equal to... 

The transition is fully classical and it proceeds over the barrier which is lower than the static one, Vo = ntoColQl- Below but above the second cross-over temperature T 2 = hcoi/2k, the tunneling transition along Q is modulated by the classical low-frequency q vibration. The apparent activation energy is smaller than V. The rate constant levels off to its low-temperature limit k only at 7 < Tc2, when tunneling starts out from the ground state of the initial parabolic term. The effective barrier in this case is neither V nor Vo,... 

It is noteworthy that it is the lower cross-over temperature T 2 that is usually measured. The above simple analysis shows that this temperature is determined by the intermolecular vibration frequencies rather than by the properties of the gas-phase reaction complex or by the static barrier. It is not surprising then, that in most solid state reactions the observed value of T 2 is of order of the Debye temperature of the crystal. Although the result (2.77a) has been obtained in the approximation < ojo, the leading exponential term turns out to be exact for arbitrary cu [Benderskii et al. 1990, 1991a]. It is instructive to compare (2.77a) with (2.27) and see that friction slows tunneling down, while the q mode promotes it. 

This formula, however, tacitly supposes that the instanton period depends monotonically on its amplitude so that the zero-amplitude vibrations in the upside-down barrier possess the smallest possible period 2nla>. This is obvious for sufficiently nonpathological one-dimensional potentials, but in two dimensions this is not necessarily the case. Benderskii et al. [1993] have found that there are certain cases of strongly bent two-dimensional PES when the instanton period has a minimum at a finite amplitude. Therefore, the cross-over temperature, formally defined as the lowest temperature at which the instanton still exists, turns out to be higher than that predicted by (4.7). At 7 > Tc the trivial solution Q= Q Q is the saddle-point coordinate) emerges instead of instanton, the action equals S = pV (where F " is the barrier height at the saddle point) and the Arrhenius dependence k oc exp( — F ") holds. 

However, for these parameters of the barrier, the cross-over temperature would exceed 500 K, while the observed values are 50 K. If one were to start from the d values calculated from the experimental data, the barrier height would go up to 30-40 kcal/mol, making any reaction impossible. This disparity between Vq and d is illustrated in fig. 34 which shows the PES cuts for the transition via the saddle-point and for the values of d indicated in table 2. 

The universality of the relaxation time at the crossover temperature can be elucidated by introducing the concept of minimum fragility at the cross-over temperature Tx as discussed in Eq. (2.19). Within the framework of the... 

The reactant mixture then enters the tubular reactor or the radiant coil at the cross-over temperature generally above 1000° F. It is rapidly heated to the cracking temperature by radiant heat supplied by burners in the combustion chamber. The gas leaving the reactor enters the transfer line exchanger where it is rapidly quenched to avoid decomposition of valuable products. 

The expansions in even powers of normal frequencies are of special interest, because they provide means for obtaining explicit relations between the equations of motion and the thermodynamic quantities, through the use of the method of moments The sum of over all the normal vibrations can be expressed as the trace, or the sum of all the diagonal elements, of a matrix H" obtained by multiplying the Hamiltonian matrix H of the system by itself (n — 1) times. Such expansions thus enable us to estimate the thermodynamic functions and their isotope effects from known force fields and structures without solving the secular equations, or alternatively, to estimate the force fields from experimental data on the thermodynamic quantities and their isotope effects. The expansions explicitly correlate the motions of particles with the thermodynamic quantities. They can also be used to evaluate analytically a characteristic temperature associated with the system, such as the cross-over temperature of an isotope exchange equilibrium. Such possible applications, however, are useful only if the expansion yields a sufficiently close approximation. The precision of results obtainable with orthogonal polynomial expansions will be explored later. 

Table XVIII. Comparison of Cross-over Temperatures for...

The higher of two cross-over temperatures of Type F shown. The lower cross-over occurs below 200°K. 

Figure 11 Variation of the C3 - C4 cross-over temperature T5o% with average ambient temperature and atmospheric CO2 partial pressure (PCO2).

The parameter represents the full width at half maximum of the excess specific heat curve. It also represents the cross-over temperature from mean field to tricritical behaviour, for... 

Fig. 1. Qualitative phase diagram for the high-r cuprates, illustrating the cross-over temperatures T and T described in the text, and the antiferromagnetic insulating (AF), superconducting (SC), and Fermi-liquid (FL) phases (adapted from Emery, Kivelson and Zachar 1997).

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