Wavepacket theory photodissociation

Balint-Kurti, G.G., Wavepacket theory of photodissociation and reactive scattering, Adv. Chem. Phys., (irr press). 

This chapter deals with the theory underlying the apphcation of wavepackets to molecular photodissociation and reactive scattering. The objective will be to derive and gather together the equations and theoretical methods needed in such calculations. No attempt will be made to reference aU calculations that have been undertaken in this very popular field. Several alternative related methods will be discussed, but it will not be possible to do full justice to all the different methods that have been proposed, many of which are being successfully used. 

The first part of the review deals with aspects of photodissociation theory and the second, with reactive scattering theory. Three appendix sections are devoted to important technical details of photodissociation theory, namely, the detailed form of the parity-adapted body-fixed scattering wavefunction needed to analyze the asymptotic wavefunction in photodissociation theory, the definition of the initial wavepacket in photodissociation theory and its relationship to the initial bound-state wavepacket, and finally the theory of differential state-specific photo-fragmentation cross sections. Many of the details developed in these appendix sections are also relevant to the theory of reactive scattering. 

In the time-independent approach one has to calculate all partial cross sections before the total cross section can be evaluated. The partial photodissociation cross sections contain all the desired information and the total cross section can be considered as a less interesting by-product. In the time-dependent approach, on the other hand, one usually first calculates the absorption spectrum by means of the Fourier transformation of the autocorrelation function. The final state distributions for any energy are, in principle, contained in the wavepacket and can be extracted if desired. The time-independent theory favors the state-resolved partial cross sections whereas the time-dependent theory emphasizes the spectrum, i.e., the total absorption cross section. If the spectrum is the main observable, the time-dependent technique is certainly the method of choice. 

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows In Sect. 5.2, we present the basic theory of the present control scheme. The validity of the theoretical method and the choice of optimal pulse parameters are discussed in Sect. 5.3. In Sect. 5.4 we provide several numerical examples i) complete electronic excitation of the wavepacket from a nonequilibrium displaced position, taking LiH and NaK as examples ii) pump-dump and creation of localized target wavepackets on the ground electronic state potential, using NaK as an example, and iii) bond-selective photodissociation in the two-dimensional model of H2O. A localized wavepacket is made to jump to the excited-state potential in a desirable force-selective region so that it can be dissociated into the desirable channel. Future perspectives from the author s point of view are summarized in Sect. 5.5. 

Heller [1. 2. 3] introduced and popularised wavepacket dynamics in the context of the theory of nioleculm iihotodissociation. In a photodissociation process, the molecule starts in a. well defined initial state and ends up in a firiiil scattering state. The initial bound state vibrational-rotatioiuil wavefunction provides a natural initial wavepacket in this case. 

The first part of the chapter deals with aspects of photodissociation theory and the second with reactive scattering theory. Key topics covered in the chapter are the anal sis of the wavepacket in the exit channel to ield product (piantuin state distributions, photofragmentation T matrix elements, state-to-state S matrices and the real wavepacket method, which we have applied only to reactive scattering calculations. 

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