Quantum Mechanical Reactive Scattering Theories and Their Applications

Abstract

All the microscopic and dynamic information of a chemical change from the reactant to the product can be obtained using the laser and crossed molecular beam techniques. They can yield many interesting physical measurements such as differential reaction cross section, integral reaction cross section, excitation function, quantum state distribution and et al. Based on this, the chemical reaction kinetics were developed from the macroscopic to the microscopic elementary state-to-state level. Quantum mechanical reactive scattering theories can give the most complete description of all elementary state-to-state bimolecular reactions allowed by natural law. In this review, several current quantum mechanical reactive scattering methods, such as time-dependent wave packet propagation, closed-coupling differential equation, the S-matrix variational approach and a linear combination of arrangement channels-scattering wavefunction and their applications are given. In addition, further development of the aforementioned theories is also explored.