Dynamics and Absolute Cross Sections of Some Hot Hydrogen Atom Reactions

Abstract

AbstractThe dynamics of chemical reactions with high threshold energies is studied by combining hot atom production by laser photolysis and fast and state selective product detection by laser induced fluorescence. — The nascent OH rotational, vibrational and fine structure (λ‐doublet and spin‐doublet) state distributions produced in the reactions have been measured at collision energies up to 240 kJ/mol (C.M.‐system) with hot H atoms from the Excimer laser photolysis of HJ, and HBr at 193 nm and 248 nm. Absolute reaction cross sections have been obtained by measuring reactant and product densities at short times. Polarization experiments with photolysis‐ and probelaser polarized parallel and perpendicular to each other are performed. — For the reaction H + O2, the experimental results are compared with extensive trajectory calculations on an ab initio potential surface (Melius, Blint 1979).