Photodissociation of CH3ONO in the first absorption band: A three-dimensional classical trajectory study

Abstract

The photodissociation of cis-CH3 ONO following excitation into the first absorption band near 350 nm is investigated by means of classical trajectories and an ab initio potential energy surface. The calculations include the O–N coordinate, the N=O coordinate, and the ONO bending angle as variables whilst the internal degrees of freedom of the CH3 O moiety are kept fixed. The calculated lifetimes range from 120 to 410 femtoseconds for excitation of the n*=4 to n*=0 vibrational states of the terminal NO group in the intermediate complex. They agree well with the lifetimes estimated from the anisotropy parameter β. The ONO bending degree of freedom has only a small effect on the lifetime of the complex. The final vibrational state (n) distribution of the NO fragment exhibits a systematic energy dependence which manifests itself in a propensity for the excitation of level n=n*−1 that is in excellent agreement with the measurement. Two-dimensional calculations for a fixed ONO bending angle cannot satisfactorily reproduce these experimental findings. The rotational state distributions are highly inverted with maxima around j∼30–35 depending slightly on the initial state (n*) and the final state (n) of NO. The overall agreement with the measured distributions is satisfactory. The results of this study emphasize the importance of the bending degree of freedom in the dissociation of CH3 ONO and by revealing the interplay of the three active vibrational modes they provide a detailed picture of the predissociation mechanism in a polyatomic molecule.