Potential energy surface

About: Potential energy surface is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 11674 publications have been published within this topic receiving 307691 citations.

Molecular Mechanics for Chemical Reactions: A Standard Strategy for Using Multiconfiguration Molecular Mechanics for Variational Transition State Theory with Optimized Multidimensional Tunneling

Abstract: Multiconfiguration molecular mechanics (MCMM) is an extension of molecular mechanics to chemically reactive systems. This dual-level method combines molecular mechanics potentials for the reactant and product configurations with electronic structure Hessians at the saddle point and a small number of nonstationary points to model the potential energy surface in the reaction swath region between reactants and products where neither molecular mechanics potential is valid. The resulting semiglobal potential energy surface is used as input for dynamics calculations of tunneling probabilities and variational transition state theory rate constants. In this paper, we present a standard strategy for applying MCMM to calculate rate constants for atom transfer reactions. In particular, we propose a general procedure for determining where to calculate the electronic structure Hessians. We tested this strategy for a diverse test suite of six reactions involving hydrogen-atom transfer. It yields reasonably accurate rat...

Sudden rotation reactive scattering: Theory and application to 3‐D H+H2

Abstract: An approximate quantum mechanical theory of reactive scattering is presented and applied to the H+H2 reaction in three dimensions. Centrifugal sudden and rotational sudden approximations are made in each arrangement channel, however, vibrational states are treated in a fully coupled manner. Matching of arrangement channel wave functions is done where the arrangement channel centrifugal potentials are equal. This matching is particularly appropriate for collinearly favored reactions. Integral and differential cross sections are calculated for the H+H2 reaction for H2 in the ground and first excited vibrational states. These calculations employ the Porter–Karplus potential energy surface mainly to allow for comparisons with previous accurate and approximate quantal and quasiclassical calculations.

Activation of methane by gold cations: guided ion beam and theoretical studies.

Abstract: The potential energy surface for activation of methane by the third-row transition metal cation, Au+, is studied experimentally by examining the kinetic energy dependence of this reaction using guided ion beam tandem mass spectrometry. A flow tube ion source produces Au+ primarily in its 1S0 (5d10) electronic ground state level but with some 3D (and perhaps higher lying) excited states that can be completely removed by a suitable quenching gas (N2O). Au+ (1S0) reacts with methane by endothermic dehydrogenation to form AuCH2+ as well as C-H bond cleavage to yield AuH+ and AuCH3+. The kinetic energy dependences of the cross sections for these endothermic reactions are analyzed to give 0 K bond dissociation energies (in eV) of D0(Au+ - CH2) = 3.70 +/- 0.07 and D0(Au+ -CH3) = 2.17 +/- 0.24. Ab initio calculations at the B3LYPHW + /6-311++G(3df,3p) level performed here show good agreement with the experimental bond energies and previous theoretical values available. Theory also provides the electronic structures of the product species as well as intermediates and transition states along the reactive potential energy surface. Surprisingly, the dehydrogenation reaction does not appear to involve an oxidative addition mechanism. We also compare this third-row transition metal system with the first-row and second-row congeners, Cu+ and Ag+. Differences in thermochemistry can be explained by the lanthanide contraction and relativistic effects that alter the relative size of the valence s and d orbitals.

Theoretical study of the H+O3↔OH+O2↔O+HO2 system

Abstract: The key features of the H+O3 potential energy surface have been determined using ab initio quantum mechanical methods. The electronic wave function used is a multiconfiguration Hartree–Fock wave function which provides a qualitatively correct description of various reactive channels. It is found that the H+O3→HO+O2 reaction proceeds along a nonplanar pathway in which the H atom descends vertically to the plane containing the ozone molecule to form an HO3 intermediate which then undergoes fragmentation. No planar transition state for a direct O‐atom abstraction could be located. The radical–radical O+HO2 reaction was found to have no energy barrier to formation of HO3 which was determined to subsequently decompose to HO+O2. The H‐atom abstraction reaction O+HO2→OH+O2 was found to have a small activation energy. The dynamical implications of these findings are discussed. The results are consistent with the observed vibrational excitation of the OH product in the H+O3 reaction. The key features of the H+O3 p...

Vibrational relaxation and geminate recombination in the femtosecond‐photodissociation of triiodide in solution

Abstract: The dynamics of product vibrational deactivation and subsequent geminate recombination of diiodide ions with atomic iodine following 400‐nm photolysis of triiodide in ethanol solution has been studied using femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy. The excess vibrational energy of the diatomic product was found to decay on two distinct time scales. An ultrafast subpicosecond component, which accounts for the dissipation of most of the energy that is initially deposited into fragment vibrations, is followed by thermalization near the bottom of the I−2 potential on a time scale of several picoseconds. The former process is associated with recoil of the fragments in the exit channel of the potential energy surface relevant to bond breakage whereas the latter process represents relaxation in the asymptotic limit where interaction between the atom–diatom fragments becomes negligible. Transient product vibrational distributions are determined for delay times larger than the dephasing time of nuclear cohere...