Dissociative vibrations

The site specificity of reaction can also be a state-dependent site specificity, that is, molecules incident in different quantum states react more readily at different sites. This has recently been demonstrated by Kroes and co-workers for the Fl2/Cu(100) system [66]. Additionally, we can find reactivity dominated by certain sites, while inelastic collisions leading to changes in the rotational or vibrational states of the scattering molecules occur primarily at other sites. This spatial separation of the active site according to the change of state occurring (dissociation, vibrational excitation etc) is a very surface specific phenomenon. 

A particularly clear example of Hund s case (c) coupling has been observed for the HeAr+ ion in its near-dissociation vibration-rotation levels [58] it also occurs for the I2 molecule [59],... 

In this section we have concentrated on calculations for H-T only, which have particular relevance to the fine and hyperfine constants determined from Jefferts experiments. Many other papers deal with calculations of the vibration-rotation level energies, for which there is much less experimental data. There are also many papers dealing with the heteronuclear molecule, HD+, which is really a special case because the Bom Oppenheimer approximation collapses, particularly for the highest vibrational levels of the ground electronic state. Even the homonuclear species H and D exhibit some fascinating and unusual effects in their near-dissociation vibration rotation levels. Finally we note that in order to match the accuracy of the experimental measurements for all the hydrogen molecular ion isotopomers, it is necessary to include radiative and relativistic effects. 

Figure 4-1. Spectral regions and their effect on molecules from left to right ionization, dissociation, vibration, and rotation.

There is another difficulty with working at room temperature. In the photochemical method, a second light beam would be used to dissociate vibrationally excited UFe molecules into a physically separable, nonvolatile lower fluoride and fluorine, while leaving unexcited UF molecules with too little energy to be dissociated. However, because most of the UFj molecules at room temperature are already in excited states, many of these would necessarily also be dissociated. 

Wang, D., Eyler, E.E., Gould, RL., and Stwalley, W.C., Spectra of ultracold KRb molecules in near-dissociation vibrational levels, J. Phys. B, 39, S849, 2006. 

Dissociation involves extension of a molecular bond until it breaks and so it might seem obvious that the more energy we can put into molecular vibration, the greater the reactivity. However, this is not always so the... 

Figure A3.9.9. Dissociation probability versus incident energy for D2 molecules incident on a Cu(l 11) surface for the initial quantum states indicated (u indicates the mitial vibrational state and J the initial rotational state) [100], For clarity, the saturation values have been scaled to the same value irrespective of the initial state, although in reality die saturation value is higher for the u = 1 state.

An important further consequence of curvature of the interaction region and a late barrier is tliat molecules that fail to dissociate can return to the gas-phase in vibrational states different from the initial, as has been observed experunentally in the H2/CU system [53, ]. To undergo vibrational (de-)excitation, the molecules must round the elbow part way, but fail to go over the barrier, eitlier because it is too high, or because the combination of vibrational and translational motions is such that the molecule moves across rather than over the barrier. Such vibrational excitation and de-excitation constrains the PES in that we require the elbow to have high curvature. Dissociation is not necessary, however, for as we have pointed out, vibrational excitation is observed in the scattering of NO from Ag(l 11) [55]. 

A situation that arises from the intramolecular dynamics of A and completely distinct from apparent non-RRKM behaviour is intrinsic non-RRKM behaviour [9], By this, it is meant that A has a non-random P(t) even if the internal vibrational states of A are prepared randomly. This situation arises when transitions between individual molecular vibrational/rotational states are slower than transitions leading to products. As a result, the vibrational states do not have equal dissociation probabilities. In tenns of classical phase space dynamics, slow transitions between the states occur when the reactant phase space is metrically decomposable [13,14] on the timescale of the imimolecular reaction and there is at least one bottleneck [9] in the molecular phase space other than the one defining the transition state. An intrinsic non-RRKM molecule decays non-exponentially with a time-dependent unimolecular rate constant or exponentially with a rate constant different from that of RRKM theory. 

Variational RRKM theory is particularly important for imimolecular dissociation reactions, in which vibrational modes of the reactant molecule become translations and rotations in the products [22]. For CH —> CHg+H dissociation there are tlnee vibrational modes of this type, i.e. the C—H stretch which is the reaction coordinate and the two degenerate H—CH bends, which first transfomi from high-frequency to low-frequency vibrations and then hindered rotors as the H—C bond ruptures. These latter two degrees of freedom are called transitional modes [24,25]. C2Hg 2CH3 dissociation has five transitional modes, i.e. two pairs of degenerate CH rocking/rotational motions and the CH torsion. 

Variational RRKM calculations, as described above, show that a imimolecular dissociation reaction may have two variational transition states [32, 31, 34, 31 and 36], i.e. one that is a tight vibrator type and another that is a loose rotator type. Wliether a particular reaction has both of these variational transition states, at a particular energy, depends on the properties of the reaction s potential energy surface [33, 34 and 31]- For many dissociation reactions there is only one variational transition state, which smoothly changes from a loose rotator type to a tight vibrator type as the energy is increased [26],... 

The first classical trajectory study of iinimoleciilar decomposition and intramolecular motion for realistic anhannonic molecular Hamiltonians was perfonned by Bunker [12,13], Both intrinsic RRKM and non-RRKM dynamics was observed in these studies. Since this pioneering work, there have been numerous additional studies [9,k7,30,M,M, ai d from which two distinct types of intramolecular motion, chaotic and quasiperiodic [14], have been identified. Both are depicted in figure A3,12,7. Chaotic vibrational motion is not regular as predicted by tire nonnal-mode model and, instead, there is energy transfer between the modes. If all the modes of the molecule participate in the chaotic motion and energy flow is sufficiently rapid, an initial microcanonical ensemble is maintained as the molecule dissociates and RRKM behaviour is observed [9], For non-random excitation initial apparent non-RRKM behaviour is observed, but at longer times a microcanonical ensemble of states is fonned and the probability of decomposition becomes that of RRKM theory. 

The chemically activated molecules are fonned by reaction of with the appropriate fliiorinated alkene. In all these cases apparent non-RRKM behaviour was observed. As displayed in figure A3.12.11 the measured imimolecular rate constants are strongly dependent on pressure. The large rate constant at high pressure reflects an mitial excitation of only a fraction of the total number of vibrational modes, i.e. initially the molecule behaves smaller than its total size. However, as the pressure is decreased, there is time for IVR to compete with dissociation and energy is distributed between a larger fraction of the vibrational modes and the rate constant decreases. At low pressures each rate constant approaches the RRKM value. 

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