Product state distributions and rotational polarization for the crossed beam reactions of Ca with F2 and NF3

Product state distributions of the CaF products from the thermal crossed beam reactions Ca + F₂ and Ca + NF₃ have been measured using laser induced fluorescence (LIF) techniques. We obtain information about the rotational and vibrational distributions by generating synthetic band profiles and comparing them with those observed. The inverted vibrational distributions indicate direct reaction mechanisms. For Ca + F₂ the fractionf′ of energy is nearly half going into product translation and the remainder being devided nearly equally between product rotation and vibration. For Ca + NF₃ the largest fraction of the available reaction exoergicity goes into vibrational excitation of the newly formed CaF products. In addition, we have probed the rotational polarization of CaF product molecules. This gives direct information on the role of angular momentum alignment in reactive scattering.