title: Dynamics of bimolecular reactions of vibrationally highly excited molecules: quasiclassical trajectory studies.
abstract: Excitation functions from quasiclassical trajectory calculations on the H + H2O --> OH + H2, H + HF --> F + H2, and H + H'F --> H' + HF reactions indicate a different behavior at low and high vibrational excitation of the breaking bond. When the reactant tri- or diatomic molecule is in vibrational ground state or in a low vibrationally excited state, all these reactions are activated; i.e., there is a nonzero threshold energy below which there is no reaction. In contrast, at high-stretch excited-states capture-type behavior is observed; i.e., with decreasing translational energy the reactive cross-section diverges. The latter induces extreme vibrational enhancement of the thermal rate consistent with the experiments. The results indicate that the speed-up observed at high vibrational excitation is beyond the applicability of Polanyi's rules in their common form; instead, it can be interpreted in terms of an attractive potential acting on the attacking H atom when it approaches the reactant with a stretched X-H bond.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Structural Chemistry, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, H-1525 Budapest, P.O. Box 17, Hungary, and Institute of Physical Chemistry, University of Debrecen, H-4010 Debrecen, P.O. Box 7, Hungary.
authors.forename: Erika
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Bene
authors.forename: György
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Lendvay
authors.forename: György
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Póta