Polyatomic molecules future research

Although coherent control is now a mature field, much remains to be accomplished in the study of the channel phase. There is no doubt that coherence plays an important role in large polyatomic molecules as well as in dissipative systems. To date, however, most of the published research on the channel phase has focused on isolated atoms and diatomic molecules, with very few studies addressing the problems of polyatomic and solvated molecules. The work to date on polyatomic molecules has been entirely experimental, whereas the research on solvated molecules has been entirely theoretical. It is important to extend the experimental methods from the gas to the condensed phase and hence explore the theoretical predictions of Section VC. Likewise interesting would be theoretical and numerical investigations of isolated large polyatomics. A challenge to future research would be to make quantitative comparison of experimental and numerical results for the channel phase. This would require that we address a sufficiently simple system, where both the experiment and the numerical calculation could be carried out accurately. 

For a polyatomic, there are many questions on the role of the polyad number in energy flow from the molecule to the bath. Does polyad number conservation in the isolated molecule inhibit energy flow to the bath Is polyad number breaking a facilitator or even a prerequisite for energy flow Finally, does the energy flow to the bath increase the polyad number breaking in the molecule One can only speculate until these questions become accessible to future research. 

A brief survey is given of physicochemical aspects of atomic and molecular processes that are of great importance in reactive plasmas. The processes are composed of the interaction of molecules, in most cases polyatomic molecules, with reactive species such as electrons, ions (both positive and negative), free radicals, and excited atoms and molecules. Topics are chosen from recent studies of some elementary processes in reactive plasmas. Some comments are also given on future problems that call for more work in reactive-plasma research from the viewpoints of physicochemical studies of gas-phase reaction dynamics and kinetics, such as radiation chemistry and photochemistry. 

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