Computations and application of classical phase space integrals in reactive molecular collisions

Abstract

Classical treatment of the evaluation of prior distribution functions (PDF) of product state and recoil energy distributions in reactive collisions is presented. It is shown that for any diatomic potential a single one dimensional numerical (or often analytical) integration suffices to determine the relevant PDF. The conservation of total angular momentum leads to an explicit dependence of the resulting distributions on the maximal total angular momentum of the reactants. The evaluation of prior cross section and branching ratios in collision induced dissociation necessitates the estimation of the radius of the interaction zone. A method for the estimation of the interaction radius and the evaluation of the priors is presented.