title: Solvation Dynamics in Liquid Water. III. Energy Fluxes and Structural Changes.
abstract: In previous installments it has been shown how a detailed analysis of energy fluxes induced by electronic excitation of a solute can provide a quantitative understanding of the dominant molecular energy flow channels characterizing solvation-and in particular, hydration- relaxation dynamics. Here this work and power approach is complemented with a detailed characterization of the changes induced by such energy fluxes. We first examine the water solvent's spatial and orientational distributions and the assorted energy fluxes in the various hydration shells of the solute to provide a molecular picture of the relaxation. The latter analysis is also used to address the issue of a possible "inverse snowball" effect, an ansatz concerning the time scales of the different hydration shells to reach equilibrium. We then establish a link between the instantaneous torque, exerted on the water solvent neighbors' principal rotational axes immediately after excitation and the final energy transferred into those librational motions, which are the dominant short-time energy receptor.
authors.affiliation: Departament de Física, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya , Campus Nord B4-B5, Barcelona 08034, Spain.
authors.forename: Rossend
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Rey
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Colorado , Boulder, Colorado 80309-0215, United States.|Chemistry Department, Ecole Normale Supérieure-PSL Research University , Sorbonne Universités-UPMC University Paris 06, CNRS UMR 8640 Pasteur, 24 rue Lhomond, 75005 Paris, France.
authors.forename: James T
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-2683-0304
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Hynes