Competition between two- and three-body decay of Cl2O

Abstract

The photodissociation dynamics of Cl2O at 235nm and 207nm are investigated. The chlorine atoms generated via dissociation into the radical and three-body decay channel are detected state specifically in a (2 + 1)-REMPI process. At 235nm the Cl2O molecule was excited to the 12B1 state and the decay is dominated by the radical dissociation Cl2O+hν→ClO+Cl. At 207nm an excitation into the 21A1 state takes place, which dissociates predominantly into the three-body channel Cl2O+hν→2Cl+O. The three-body decay is characterized based on the fragment kinetic energy distributions at 235nm and 207nm. The shape of the energy distributions points to an asynchronous concerted decay mechanism.