Pericyclic reactions excited state

The Woodward-Hoffmann rules for pericyclic reactions require an analysis of all reactant and product molecular orbitals, but Kenichi Fukui at Kyoto Imperial University in Japan introduced a simplified version. According to Fukui, we need to consider only two molecular orbitals, called the frontier orbitals. These frontier orbitals are the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO). In ground-state 1,3,5-hexa-triene, for example, 1//3 is the HOMO and excited-stale 1,3,5-hexatriene, however, 5 is the LUMO. 

The stereochemistry of any pericyclic reaction can be predicted by counting the total number of electron pairs (bonds) involved in bond reorganization and then applying the mnemonic "The Electrons Circle Around. " That is, thermal (ground-slate) reactions involving an even number of electron pairs occur with either conrotatory or antarafacial stereochemistry. Exactly the opposite rules apply to photochemical (excited-state) reactions. 

A pericyclic reaction is allowed if orbital symmetry is conserved. In such reactions there is conversion of the ground (electronic) state of reactant into the ground state of the product. Such reactions are said to be thermally allowed, or there is the conversion of the first excited state of the reactant into the first excited state of the product. There are photo-chemically allowed reactions. 

The photochemistry of conjugated polyenes has played a central role in the development of modern molecular photochemistry, due in no small part to its ultimate relevance to the electronic excited state properties of vitamins A and D and the visual pigments, as well as to pericyclic reaction theory. The field is enormous, tremendously diverse, and still very active from both experimental and theoretical perspectives. It is also remarkably complex, primarily because file absorption spectra and excited state behavior of polyene systems are strongly dependent on conformation about the formal single bonds in the polyene chain, which has the main effect of turning on or off various pericyclic reactions whose efficiencies are most strongly affected by conformational factors. 

R. C. Dougherty, J. Amer. Chem. Soc., 93, 7187 (1971) has argued that systems whose ground states are aromatic have antiaromatic excited states and vice versa, and that therefore the universal criterion for allowed pericyclic reactions, both ground and excited-state, is that the transition state be aromatic. The uncertainty of our present knowledge of excited states nevertheless indicates that the more restricted statement given here is to be preferred. 

The Woodward-Hoffmann pericyclic reaction theory has generated substantial interest in the pathways of forbidden reactions and of excited state processes, beginning with a paper by Longuet-Higgins and Abrahamson,54 which appeared simultaneously with Woodward and Hoffmann s first use of orbital correlation diagrams.55 We have noted in Section 11.3, p. 586, that the orbital correlation diagram predicts that if a forbidden process does take place by a concerted pericyclic mechanism,56 and if electrons were to remain in their original orbitals, an... 

However, photo-activation puts so much energy into the molecule, that many pathways become available to the first electronically excited state in addition to the relatively simple pericyclic change. For this reason, none of the photochemical reactions above can be guaranteed to be pericyclic, and all that one should take from these results is the very strong and suggestive contrast with the rules for thermal cycloadditions. This contrast is accentuated by the observation that photochemical Diels-Alder reactions are very rare, in spite of the ease with which 6-membered rings are normally formed. 

Although some pericyclic reactions occur spontaneously, most reactions can be frequently promoted by light as well as heat. Normally, the stereochemistry under the two sets of conditions is different. Thus, there maybe two main reaction conditions, thermal (in ground state) and photochemical (in excited state). 

Huckel was also able to show that if a cyclic conjugated tt-system is irradiated with light so that it goes into the first excited singlet or triplet electronic state, it is especially stable if the number of cyclically conjugated electrons equals [4n]. Hence, photochemically activated pericyclic reactions will proceed suprafacially via a Huckel transition state if the electron count corresponds to [An],... 

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