Unimolecular resonance shape

In indirect methods, the resonance parameters are determined from the energy dependence of the absorption spectrum. An important extra step — the non-linear fit of (t E) to a Lorentzian line shape — is required, in addition to the extensive dynamical calculations. The procedure is flawless for isolated resonances, especially if the harmonic inversion algorithms are employed, but the uncertainty of the fit grows as the resonances broaden, start to overlap and melt into the unresolved spectral background. The unimolecular dissociations of most molecules with a deep potential well feature overlapping resonances [133]. It is desirable, therefore, to have robust computational approaches which yield resonance parameters and wave functions without an intermediate fitting procedure, irrespective of whether the resonances are narrow or broad, overlapped or isolated. 

In this chapter, we discussed the principle quantum mechanical effects inherent to the dynamics of unimolecular dissociation. The starting point of our analysis is the concept of discrete metastable states (resonances) in the dissociation continuum, introduced in Sect. 2 and then amply illustrated in Sects. 5 and 6. Resonances allow one to treat the spectroscopic and kinetic aspects of unimolecular dissociation on equal grounds — they are spectroscopically measurable states and, at the same time, the states in which a molecule can be temporally trapped so that it can be stabilized in collisions with bath particles. The main property of quantum state-resolved unimolecular dissociation is that the lifetimes and hence the dissociation rates strongly fluctuate from state to state — they are intimately related to the shape of the resonance wave functions in the potential well. These fluctuations are universal in that they are observed in mode-specific, statistical state-specific and mixed systems. Thus, the classical notion of an energy dependent reaction rate is not strictly valid in quantum mechanics Molecules activated with equal amounts of energy but in different resonance states can decay with drastically different rates. 

For a quasi-stationary resonance state the unimolecular reactant moves within the potential energy well for a considerable period of time, leaving it only when a fairly long time interval t has elapsed t may be called the lifetime of the almost stationary resonance state. The energy spectrum of these states will be quasi-discrete it consists of a series of broadened levels with Lorentzian line-shapes [recall Eq. (4.35)], whose full-width at half-maximum F is related to the lifetime by F = hH. 

Computations of shapes and widths of resonance lines have been performed for realistic, nevertheless somewhat marginal, examples of unimolecular breakdown, namely for a resonance in He-Nj scattering and for Xe-Di (see also the... 

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