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Ketene is photolyzed in a supersonic jet, and the vibrationally excited singlet methylene CH2 (a 1A1), produced is detected by laser-induced fluorescence. The appearance thresholds and yield curves of individual methylene rovibrational states are obtained by scanning the photolysis laser wavelength. As observed previously by probing the (0,0,0) state at lower photolysis energies, there are no barriers to dissociation and nuclear spin is conserved. Sharp steps are observed just above the energetic threshold in each of these photofragment excitation (PHOFEX) curves. This suggests that the rotational state distributions are given by phase space theory (PST). The quantum yield of the (0,1,0)101 rovibrational state is measured and the quantum yield for (0,1,0) inferred. These values are larger than predicted by PST, and are close to values predicted by variational Rice–Ramsberger–Kassel–Marcus (RRKM) theory and by the separate statistical ensembles (SSE) method. This indicates that near the (0,1,0) energy threshold the (0,0,0) yield is constrained, as by a tight transition state. The appearance of steps spaced by the energies of a free CO rotor in the PHOFEX curves close to the thresholds of each vibrational state probed indicates that the near threshold flux of vibrationally excited products is controlled by a loose ‘‘transition state’’ on a vibrationally adiabatic surface. These observations are consistent with the variational RRKM theory for dissociations without barriers in which each product vibrational state evolves on its own vibrationally adiabatic potential surface and has its own transition state. As the energy increases above the threshold for a vibrational state, its transition state moves in along the reaction coordinate and tightens. Thus total rates increase less rapidly with energy than in PST and vibrational distributions are skewed towards higher levels than in PST. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rotational distributions of CO products from the dissociation of ketene at photolysis energies 10 cm-1 below, 56, 110, 200, 325, 425, 1107, 1435, 1720, and 2500 cm-1 above the singlet threshold (30 116.2 cm-1 ), are measured in a supersonic free jet of ketene. The CO(v‘=0) rotational distributions at 56, 110, 200, 325, and 425 cm-1 are bimodal. The peaks at low J’s, which are due to CO from the singlet channel, show that the product rotational distribution of CO product from ketene dissociation on the singlet surface is well described by phase space theory (PST). For CO(v‘=0) rotational distributions at higher excess energies (1107, 1435, 1720, and 2500 cm-1 ), the singlet and triplet contributions are not clearly resolved, and the singlet/triplet branching ratios are estimated by assuming that PST accurately predicts the CO rotational distribution from the singlet channel and that the distribution from the triplet channel changes little from that at 10 cm-1 below the singlet threshold. The singlet yield shows a rapid increase in the low excess energy region (0–300 cm-1 ), and a slower increase above. The singlet and triplet rate constants are derived from the directly measured total rate constants using the singlet yields. The triplet rate constant increases monotonically with increasing photolysis energy through the singlet threshold region. The singlet rate constant is accurately established in the threshold region and found to increase much less rapidly than predicted by phase space theory. At 2500 cm-1 excess energy, the CO(v‘=1) rotational distribution is obtained, and the ratio of CO(v‘=1) to CO(v‘=0) products for the singlet channel is measured to be 0.045±0.017. This ratio is close to the variational Rice–Ramsberger–Kassel–Marcus (RRKM) calculation 0.038, and the separate statistical ensembles (SSE) prediction 0.041, but much greater than the PST prediction, 0.016. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]