On the competitive roles of reagent vibration and translation in the exothermic proton transfer reaction H+2+Ar→HAr++H

Abstract

We present a crossed beam study of the title reaction at fixed collision energies of 1.2 and 2.3 eV with reagent H+2 average vibrational energies of 0.44 and 0.89 eV; we also present data at fixed total energies with variable proportions of reagent vibrational and translational energy. At fixed collision energy, reagent vibrational excitation is found to have negligible effect on the total cross section for proton transfer. At fixed total energy, a decrease in reagent vibrational excitation with a corresponding increase in reagent translation leads to partial disposal of the incremental translation in product translation: At a total energy of 3.5 eV, 50% of this incremental reagent translation appears as product translation. At a total energy of 4.6 eV, 78% of the incremental translation appears in product translation. The experimental data are discussed in terms of induced attractive and repulsive energy release on an attractive potential surface. The role of noncollinear geometries and compressed reactant configurations is judged to be of substantial importance in assessing product rotational excitation and dissociation.