Time-independent theories, single excited state

Q Time-Independent Theories for a Single Excited State... 

We mention that there are other noteworthy single excited-state theories the stationary-principle theory of Gorling [33], the formalism of Sahni [34] or the local scaling approach of Ludena and Kryachko [35]. Beyond the time-independent theories mentioned above the time-dependent density functional theory [36] provides... 

More importantly, a molecular species A can exist in many quantum states in fact the very nature of the required activation energy implies that several excited nuclear states participate. It is intuitively expected that individual vibrational states of the reactant will correspond to different reaction rates, so the appearance of a single macroscopic rate coefficient is not obvious. If such a constant rate is observed experimentally, it may mean that the process is dominated by just one nuclear state, or, more likely, that the observed macroscopic rate coefficient is an average over many microscopic rates. In the latter case k = Piki, where ki are rates associated with individual states and Pi are the corresponding probabilities to be in these states. The rate coefficient k is therefore time-independent provided that the probabilities Pi remain constant during the process. The situation in which the relative populations of individual molecular states remains constant even if the overall population declines is sometimes referred to as a quasi steady state. This can happen when the relaxation process that maintains thermal equilibrium between molecular states is fast relative to the chemical process studied. In this case Pi remain thermal (Boltzmann) probabilities at all times. We have made such assumptions in earlier chapters see Sections 10.3.2 and 12.4.2. We will see below that this is one of the conditions for the validity of the so-called transition state theory of chemical rates. We also show below that this can sometime happen also under conditions where the time-independent probabilities Pi do not correspond to a Boltzmann distribution. 

Virtually all non-trivial collision theories are based on the impact-parameter method and on the independent-electron model, where one active electron moves under the influence of the combined field of the nuclei and the remaining electrons frozen in their initial state. Most theories additionally rely on much more serious assumptions as, e.g., adiabatic or sudden electronic transitions, perturbative or even classical projectile/electron interactions. All these assumptions are circumvented in this work by solving the time-dependent Schrodinger equation numerically exact using the atomic-orbital coupled-channel (AO) method. This non-perturbative method provides full information of the basic single-electron mechanisms such as target excitation and ionization, electron capture and projectile excitation and ionization. Since the complex populations amplitudes are available for all important states as a function of time at any given impact parameter, practically all experimentally observable quantities may be computed. 

---