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The C([super 3]P) + OH([X.sup.2][II]->CO([X.sup.1][SIGMA.sub.g.sup.+]+H([super 2]S) reaction was investigated by ab inito electronic structure calculations of the [X.sup.2]A' state based on the multireference (MR) internally contracted single and double configuration interaction (SDCI) method. The results show that the global reaction is highly exothermic and barrierless while five potential barriers are located on this surface.

An analytical potential energy surface for a rigid Rb2 in the 3σu+ state interacting with one helium atom based on accurate ab initio computations is proposed. This 2-dimensional potential is used, together with the pair approximation approach, to investigate Rb2 attached to small helium clusters HeN with N = 1-6, 12, and 20 by means of quantum Monte Carlo studies. The limit of large clusters is approximated by a flat helium surface. The relative orientation of the dialkali axis and the helium surface is found to be parallel. Dynamical investigations of the pendular and of the in-plane rotation of the rigid Rb2 molecule on the surface are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The photodissociation dynamics and photofragment alignment of bromoiodomethane (CH 2 BrI) have been studied at 193 nm using a double experimental and theoretical approach. In addition, the ultraviolet (UV)-vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) absorption spectrum of gas phase CH 2 BrI has been measured in the photon energy range of 5-11 eV using the VUV Fourier transform spectrometer (FTS) at the VUV beamline DESIRS of the synchrotron SOLEIL facility. The slice imaging technique in combination with resonance enhanced multiphoton ionization (REMPI) detection of the Br( 2 P J ) and I( 2 P J ) (with J = 3/2 and 1/2 for Br/I and Br*/I*, respectively) atomic photofragments have been used to produce experimental translational energy and angular distributions, which were analyzed to deliver, on one hand, the partitioning of the available energy among the different degrees-of-freedom of the photofragments and, on the other, the photofragment polarization in terms of a q k ( p ) alignment parameters. The experimental measurements were rationalized in terms of high-level ab initio calculations of vertical excitation energies, transition dipole moments and potential energy curves (PECs) along different reaction coordinates to provide a complete picture of the photodissociation dynamics. The results indicate that for excitation at 193 nm, prompt C-X cleavage (with X being either halogen atom, Br or I) competes with fast internal conversion and consequent stochastic dissociation in lower electronic states. In the case of the CH 2 Br + I( 2 P 3/2 )/I*( 2 P 1/2 ) channels, the dynamics are greatly biased toward the stochastic dissociation process due to both the particular PECs landscape and the unfavored excitation of the CH 2 BrI ensemble with respect to the C-I molecular axis at this excitation energy. The ab initio PECs provide a tentative path for the fast dissociation process in either case. For the C-Br bond breakage, excitation to the 13 A ' electronic state and predissociation through the 11 A '/11 A ″ or 12 A '/12 A ″ states, leading to direct dissociation through the 10 A '/9 A ″ states, appear as the most consistent dynamics. For the C-I channel, predissociation does not become a reliable possibility and a fast internal conversion may precede dissociation through the repulsive 6 A '/6 A ″ and 4 A '/4 A ″ states. The large content of rotational and vibrational excitation of the polyatomic cofragments is justified through the soft impulsive model and the geometrical changes produced along the dissociation pathway. Strikingly, the a q k ( p ) alignment parameters obtained for the Br( 2 P 3/2 ) and I( 2 P 3/2 ) photoproducts indicate that the rotational angular momentum of the CH 2 X (X = I or Br) cofragment appears highly constrained along the recoil direction. Finally, this work presents a highly plausible explanation for the branching ratio of secondary dissociation processes in the photodynamics of CH 2 BrI at 193 nm.

The electronic structure of subnanometric clusters, far off the bulk regime, is still dominated by molecular characteristics. The spatial arrangement of the notoriously undercoordinated metal atoms is strongly coupled to the electronic properties of the system, which makes this class of materials particularly interesting for applications including luminescence, sensing, bioimaging, theranostics, energy conversion, catalysis, and photocatalysis. Opposing a common rule of thumb that assumes an increasing chemical reactivity with smaller cluster size, Cu 5 clusters have proven to be exceptionally resistant to irreversible oxidation, i.e., the dissociative chemisorption of molecular oxygen. Besides providing reasons for this behavior in the case of heavy loading with molecular oxygen, we investigate the competition between physisorption and molecular chemisorption from the perspective of nonadiabatic effects. Landau-Zener theory is applied to the Cu 5 (O 2 ) 3 complex to estimate the probability for a switching between the electronic states correlating the neutral O 2 + Cu 5 (O 2 ) 2 and the ionic O 2 - + (Cu 5 (O 2 ) 2 ) + fragments in a diabatic representation. Our work demonstrates the involvement of strong nonadiabatic effects in the associated charge transfer process, which might be a common motive in reactions involving subnanometric metal structures.

VUV photoionization of the CH n I radicals (with n = 0, 1, and 2) is investigated by means of synchrotron radiation coupled with a double imaging photoion-photoelectron coincidence spectrometer. Photoionization efficiencies and threshold photoelectron spectra (TPES) for photon energies ranging between 9.2 and 12.0 eV are reported. An adiabatic ionization energy (AIE) of 8.334 ± 0.005 eV is obtained for CH 2 I, which is in good agreement with previous results [8.333 ± 0.015 eV, Sztáray J. Chem. Phys. 2017, 147, 013944], while for CI an AIE of 8.374 ± 0.005 eV is measured for the first time and a value of ∼8.8 eV is estimated for CHI. Ab initio calculations have been carried out for the ground state of the CH 2 I radical and for the ground state and excited states of the radical cation CH 2 I + , including potential energy curves along the C-I coordinate. Franck-Condon factors are calculated for transitions from the CH 2 I(X̃ 2 B 1 ) ground state of the neutral radical to the ground state and excited states of the radical cation. The TPES measured for the CH 2 I radical shows several structures that correspond to the photoionization into excited states of the radical cation and are fully assigned on the basis of the calculations. The TPES obtained for the CHI is characterized by a broad structure peaking at 9.335 eV, which could be due to the photoionization from both the singlet and the triplet states and into one or more electronic states of the cation. A vibrational progression is clearly observed in the TPES for the CI radical and a frequency for the C-I stretching mode of 760 ± 60 cm -1 characterizing the CI + electronic ground state has been extracted.

An analytical potential energy surface for a rigid Rb₂ in the ³Σ(u)⁺ state interacting with one helium atom based on accurate ab initio computations is proposed. This 2-dimensional potential is used, together with the pair approximation approach, to investigate Rb₂ attached to small helium clusters He(N) with N = 1-6, 12, and 20 by means of quantum Monte Carlo studies. The limit of large clusters is approximated by a flat helium surface. The relative orientation of the dialkali axis and the helium surface is found to be parallel. Dynamical investigations of the pendular and of the in-plane rotation of the rigid Rb₂ molecule on the surface are presented.

The C((3)P) + OH(X (2)Pi) --> CO(X (1)Sigma(g)(+)) + H((2)S) reaction has been investigated by ab initio electronic structure calculations of the X(2)A' state based on the multireference (MR) internally contracted single and double configuration interaction (SDCI) method plus Davidson correction (+Q) using Dunning aug-cc-pVQZ basis sets. In particular, the multireference space is taken to be a complete active space (CAS). Improvement over previously proposed potential energy surfaces for HCO/COH is obtained in the sense that present surface describes also the potential part where the CO interatomic distance is large. A large number of geometries (around 2000) have been calculated and analytically fitted using the reproducing kernel Hilbert space (RKHS) method of Ho and Rabitz both for the two-body and three-body terms following the many-body decomposition of the total electronic energies. Results show that the global reaction is highly exothermic ( approximately 6.4 eV) and barrierless (relative to the reactant channel), while five potential barriers are located on this surface. The three minima and five saddle points observed are characterized and found to be in good agreement with previous work. The three minima correspond to the formation of HCO and COH complexes and to the CO + H products, with the COH complex being a metastable minimum relative to the product channel. The five saddle points correspond to potential barriers for both the dissociation/formation of HCO and COH into/from CO + H, to barriers for the isomerization of HCO into COH and to barriers for the inversion of HCO and COH through their respective linear configuration.