title: Tracking the energy flow along the reaction path.
abstract: We report a comprehensive study of the quantum-state correlation property of product pairs from reactions of chlorine atoms with both the ground-state and the CH stretch-excited CHD(3). In light of available ab initio theoretical results, this set of experimental data provides a conceptual framework to visualize the energy-flow pattern along the reaction path, to classify the activity of different vibrational modes in a reactive encounter, to gain deeper insight into the concept of vibrational adiabaticity, and to elucidate the intermode coupling in the transition-state region. This exploratory approach not only opens up an avenue to understand polyatomic reaction dynamics, even for motions at the molecular level in the fleeting transition-state region, but it also leads to a generalization of Polanyi's rules to reactions involving a polyatomic molecule.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Atomic and Molecular Sciences, Academia Sinica, P.O. Box 23-166, Taipei 10617, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Shannon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.forename: Yen-Tien
authors.initials: YT
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Kopin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Liu