H+ versus D+ transfer from HOD+ to N2: Mode- and bond-selective effects

Abstract

Reactions of HOD(+) with N(2) have been studied for HOD(+) in its ground state and with one quantum of excitation in each of its vibrational modes: (001)--predominately OH stretch, 0.396 eV, (010)--bend, 0.153 eV, and (100)--predominately OD stretch, 0.293 eV. Integral cross sections and product recoil velocities were recorded for collision energies from threshold to 4 eV. The cross sections for both H(+) and D(+) transfer rise slowly from threshold with increasing collision energy; however, all three vibrational modes enhance reaction much more strongly than equivalent amounts of collision energy and the enhancements remain large even at high collision energy, where the vibration contributes less than 10% of the total energy. Excitation of the OH stretch enhances H(+) transfer by a factor of ∼5, but the effect on D(+) transfer is only slightly larger than that from an equivalent increase in collision energy, and smaller than the effect from the much lower energy bend excitation. Similarly, OD stretch excitation strongly enhances D(+) transfer, but has essentially no effect beyond that of the additional energy on H(+) transfer. The effects of the two stretch vibrations are consistent with the expectation that stretching the bond that is broken in the reaction puts momentum in the correct coordinate to drive the system into the exit channel. From this perspective it is quite surprising that bend excitation also results in large (factor of 2) enhancements of both H(+) and D(+) transfer channels, such that its effect on the total cross section at collision energies below ∼2 eV is comparable to those from the two stretch modes, even though the bend excitation energy is much smaller. For collision energies above ∼2 eV, the vibrational effects become approximately proportional to the vibrational energy, though still much larger than the effects of equivalent addition of collision energy. Measurements of the product recoil velocity distributions show that reaction is direct at all collision energies, with roughly half the products in a sharp peak corresponding to stripping dynamics and half with a broad and approximately isotropic recoil velocity distribution. Despite the large effects of vibrational excitation on reactivity, the effects on recoil dynamics are small, indicating that vibrational excitation does not cause qualitative changes in the reaction mechanism or in the distribution of reactive impact parameters.