Transition state region

In the transition state region, the spin-pairing change mnst take place. At this nuclear configuration, the electronic wave function may be written as... 

The critical portion of the progress of the chemically reacting system over the potential energy surface is in the transition state region. The transition state is... 

FIGURE 2.2. A schematic description of the evaluation of the transmission factor F. The figure describes three trajectories that reach the transition state region (in reality we will need many more trajectories for meaningful statistics). Two of our trajectories continue to the product region XP, while one trajectory crosses the line where X = X (the dashed line) but then bounces back to the reactants region XR. Thus, the transmission factor for this case is 2/3. 

The number of detailed studies on these last systems is nowadays sufficiently large to generalize the results, and to project the conclusion to more complex (o "perverse" according to Coulson) systems. The traditional view of a reaction occurring on a well defined surface, with a flux of representative points passing the transition state region is unteiiable. The separation between static and dynamic aspects of a problem, so often exploited for studies an isolated molecule must be reconsidered. 

Since the forward peak is clearly from high J collisions, it is clearly produced via a rapidly rotating intermediate exhibiting an enhanced time delay. Further insight into the associated dynamics is provided by a classical trajectory simulation by Skodje. The forward peak results from the sideway collisions of the H atom on the HD-diatom (see Fig. 37). At the point where the transition state region is first reached, the collision complex is already oriented about 70° relative to the center-of-mass collision axis. The intermediate then rotates rapidly with an angular frequency of u> J/I, where / is the moment of inertia of the intermediate. If the intermediate with a time delay of the order of the lifetime r, the intermediate can rotate... 

Figure 4.67 The potential-energy profile for the transition-state region of the model c-metathesis reaction (4.102).

Figure 5.60 The transition-state region of the reaction profile (along the IRC) for the model butadiene + ethylene Diels-Alder reaction. (The zero of energy corresponds to the cyclohexene product.)...

Fig. 1. The Marcus parabolic free energy surfaces corresponding to the reactant electronic state of the system (DA) and to the product electronic state of the system (D A ) cross (become resonant) at the transition state. The curves which cross are computed with zero electronic tunneling interaction and are known as the diabatic curves, and include the Born-Oppenheimer potential energy of the molecular system plus the environmental polarization free energy as a function of the reaction coordinate. Due to the finite electronic coupling between the reactant and charge separated states, a fraction k l of the molecular systems passing through the transition state region will cross over onto the product surface this electronically controlled fraction k l thus enters directly as a factor into the electron transfer rate constant...

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