Excited molecule dynamics

In this review a summary of some of the recent progress in applying recoil radiotracers to three areas of dynamics will be outlined. No attempt has been made to be encyclopedic but rather selected examples have been chosen, often from the authors own work. The areas into which this review is divided are excited molecule dynamics kinetic parameter characterization and reaction mechanisms and stereochemistry. 

A discussion of recent published results on the cyclobutane reaction illustrates the kind of excited molecule dynamical information available from recoil techniques. The primary assumption in the approach reported is that the RRKM (Rice-Ramsperger-Kassel-Marcus) method for describing statistical energy redistribution and calculating decomposition rate constants is valid. TTius, deviations from expected RRKM behavior... 

Plenary 10. Hiro-o Hamaguchi, e-mail address lilrama ,chem.s.u-tokvo.ac.ip (time and polarization resolved multiplex 2D-CARS). Two-dimensional (tune and frequency) CARS using broadband dye source and streak camera timing. Studies dynamic behaviour of excited (pumped) electronic states. Follows energy flow within excited molecules. Polarization control of phase of signal (NR background suppression). 

Flynn G W, Michaels C A, Tapalian C, Lin Z, Sevy E and Muyskens M A 1997 Infrared laser snapshots vibrational, rotational and translational energy probes of high energy collision dynamics Highly Excited Molecules Relaxation, Reaction, and Structure ed A Mullin and G Schatz (Washington, DC ACS)... 

In studies of molecular dynamics, lasers of very short pulse lengths allow investigation by laser-induced fluorescence of chemical processes that occur in a picosecond time frame. This time period is much less than the lifetimes of any transient species that could last long enough to yield a measurable vibrational spectrum. Such measurements go beyond simple detection and characterization of transient species. They yield details never before available of the time behavior of species in fast reactions, such as temporal and spatial redistribution of initially localized energy in excited molecules. Laser-induced fluorescence characterizes the molecular species that have formed, their internal energy distributions, and their lifetimes. 

One would prefer to be able to calculate aU of them by molecular dynamics simulations, exclusively. This is unfortunately not possible at present. In fact, some indices p, v of Eq. (6) refer to electronically excited molecules, which decay through population relaxation on the pico- and nanosecond time scales. The other indices p, v denote molecules that remain in their electronic ground state, and hydrodynamic time scales beyond microseconds intervene. The presence of these long times precludes the exclusive use of molecular dynamics, and a recourse to hydrodynamics of continuous media is inevitable. This concession has a high price. Macroscopic hydrodynamics assume a local thermodynamic equilibrium, which does not exist at times prior to 100 ps. These times are thus excluded from these studies. 

Vibrationally mediated photodissociation (VMP) can be used to measure the vibrational spectra of small ions, such as V (OCO). Vibrationally mediated photodissociation is a double resonance technique in which a molecule first absorbs an IR photon. Vibrationally excited molecules are then selectively photodissociated following absorption of a second photon in the UV or visible [114—120]. With neutral molecules, VMP experiments are usually used to measure the spectroscopy of regions of the excited-state potential energy surface that are not Franck-Condon accessible from the ground state and to see how different vibrations affect the photodissociation dynamics. In order for VMP to work, there must be some wavelength at which vibrationally excited molecules have an electronic transition and photodissociate, while vibrationally unexcited molecules do not. In practice, this means that the ion has to have a... 

In the past decade, vibronic coupling models have been used extensively and successfully to explain the short-time excited-state dynamics of small to medium-sized molecules [200-202]. In many cases, these models were used in conjunction with the MCTDH method [203-207] and the comparison to experimental data (typically electronic absorption spectra) validated both the MCTDH method and the model potentials, which were obtained by fitting high-level quantum chemistry calculations. In certain cases the ab initio-determined parameters were modified to agree with experimental results (e.g., excitation energies). The MCTDH method assumes the existence of factorizable parameterized PESs and is thus very different from AIMS. However, it does scale more favorably with system size than other numerically exact quantum... 

The Dynamics of "Stretched Molecules" Experimental Studies of Highly Vibra-tionally Excited Molecules with Stimulated Emission Pumping. 

The basic theories of physics - classical mechanics and electromagnetism, relativity theory, quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics, quantum electrodynamics - support the theoretical apparatus which is used in molecular sciences. Quantum mechanics plays a particular role in theoretical chemistry, providing the basis for the valence theories which allow to interpret the structure of molecules and for the spectroscopic models employed in the determination of structural information from spectral patterns. Indeed, Quantum Chemistry often appears synonymous with Theoretical Chemistry it will, therefore, constitute a major part of this book series. However, the scope of the series will also include other areas of theoretical chemistry, such as mathematical chemistry (which involves the use of algebra and topology in the analysis of molecular structures and reactions) molecular mechanics, molecular dynamics and chemical thermodynamics, which play an important role in rationalizing the geometric and electronic structures of molecular assemblies and polymers, clusters and crystals surface, interface, solvent and solid-state effects excited-state dynamics, reactive collisions, and chemical reactions. 

Fluorescence was used to investigate the excited-state dynamics of the radical cation of thianthrene (TH ) <2001PCA6594>. The frequencies of the fundamental modes of the molecules of some dioxins in the ground electronic state were also determined by analysis of their fine-structure phosphorescence spectra <19990PS(86)239, 19970PS(83)92, 20000PS(89)42, 20000PS(88)339>. 

Hatano, Y. In Dynamics of Excited Molecules, Kuchitsu, K., Ed. Elsevier Amsterdam, Chapter 6, 1994 151-216. 

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