A density-functional-theory study of atomic nitrogen abstraction from Si(100)-(2 x 1) by a gaseous O(3P) atom

We have employed density-functional theory (DFT) to investigate the abstraction of a nitrogen atom from the Si(100)-(2 x 1) surface by a gas-phase O(3P) atom for different initial bonding configurations of nitrogen at the surface. For the N-Si(100) structures investigated, nitrogen abstraction by an O(3P) atom is predicted to be exothermic by at least 1.9 eV. Abstraction in a single elementary step is found only for the interaction of an O(3P) atom with nitrogen bound in a coordinatively saturated configuration, and an energy barrier of 0.20 eV is computed for this reaction. For nitrogen bound in coordinatively unsaturated configurations, abstraction is predicted to occur by precursor-mediated pathways in which the initial O-surface collision results in the formation of a N-O bond and the concomitant release of between 2.7 and 4.8 eV of energy into the surface, depending on the initial N-Si(100) structure. This initial step produces different surface structures containing an adsorbed NO species, which can then undergo a series of elementary steps leading to NO desorption. Since the barriers for these steps are found to be less than 1 eV in all cases, a significant excess of energy is available from initial N-O bond formation that could activate NO desorption within no more than a few vibrational periods after the initial gas-surface collision. Nitrogen abstraction by such a pathway is essentially an Eley-Rideal process since NO desorption occurs rapidly after the initial gas-surface collision, without the reactants thermally accommodating with the surface. These computational results indicate that nitrogen abstraction by gaseous O(3P) atoms should be facile, even at low surface temperatures, if nitrogen is bound to the Si(100) surface in coordinatively unsaturated configurations.     

H+ versus D+ transfer from HOD+ to CO2: bond-selective chemistry and the anomalous effect of bending excitation

Reactions of HOD(+) with CO(2) have been studied for HOD(+) in its ground state, and with one quantum of excitation in each of its vibrational modes: (001)--predominantly OH stretch, 0.396 eV; (010)--bend, 0.153 eV; and (100)--predominantly OD stretch, 0.293 eV. Integral cross sections and product recoil velocities were recorded for collision energies from threshold to 3 eV. The cross sections for both H(+) and D(+) transfer rise with increasing collision energy from threshold to ～1 eV, then become weakly dependent of the collision energy. All three vibrational modes enhance the total reactivity, but quite mode specifically. The H(+) transfer reaction is enhanced by OH stretch excitation, whereas OD stretch excitation has little effect. Conversely, the D(+) transfer reaction is enhanced by OD stretch excitation, while the OH stretch has little effect. Excitation of the bend strongly enhances both channels. The effects of the stretch excitations are consistent with previous studies of neutral HOD mode-selective chemistry, and can be at least qualitatively understood in terms of a late barrier to product formation. The fact that bend excitation produces the largest overall enhancement is surprising, because this is the lowest energy excitation, and is not obviously connected with the reaction coordinates for either H(+) or D(+) transfer. A rationalization in terms of the effects of water distortion on the potential surface is proposed.     

A time-dependent quantum dynamical study of the H + HBr reaction

Time-dependent wave packet calculations were carried out to study the exchange and abstraction processes in the title reaction on the Kurosaki-Takayanagi potential energy surface (Kurosaki, Y.; Takayanagi, T. J. Chem. Phys. 2003, 119, 7838). Total reaction probabilities and integral cross sections were calculated for the reactant HBr initially in the ground state, first rotationally excited state, and first vibrationally excited state for both the exchange and abstraction reactions. At low collision energy, only the abstraction reaction occurs because of its low barrier height. Once the collision energy exceeds the barrier height of the exchange reaction, the exchange process quickly becomes the dominant process presumably due to its larger acceptance cone. It is found that initial vibrational excitation of HBr enhances both processes, while initial rotational excitation of HBr from j(0) = 0 to 1 has essentially no effect on both processes. For the abstraction reaction, the theoretical cross section at E(c) = 1.6 eV is 1.06 A(2), which is smaller than the experimental result of 3 +/- 1 A(2) by a factor of 2-3. On the other hand, the theoretical rate constant is larger than the experimental results by about a factor of 2 in the temperature region between 220 and 550 K. It is also found that the present quantum rate constant is larger than the TST result by a factor of 2 at 200 K. However, the agreement between the present quantum rate constant and the TST result improves as the temperature increases.     

Quantum and quasiclassical state-to-state dynamics of the NH + H reaction: competition between abstraction and exchange channels

Quantum and quasiclassical state-to-state dynamics for the NH + H' reaction at high collision energies up to 1.6 eV was studied on an accurate ab initio potential energy surface. Both of the endothermic abstraction (NH + H' → N + HH') and thermoneutral exchange (NH + H' → H + NH') channels were investigated from the same set of wave packets using an efficient coordinate transformation method. It is found that the abstraction represents a minor reaction channel in the energy range studied, primarily due to endothermicity. The cross section for the abstraction reaction increases monotonically with the collision energy, while that for the exchange reaction is relatively energy insensitive. As a result, the thermal rate constant for the abstraction reaction follows the Arrhenius law, where that for the exchange reaction is nearly temperature independent. Finally, it is shown that the quantum mechanical results can be reasonably reproduced by the Gaussian-binning quasiclassical trajectory method and to a lesser extent by a quantum statistical model.     

State-to-state quantum dynamics of the H + HBr reaction: competition between the abstraction and exchange reactions

Quantum state-to-state dynamics for the H + HBr(υ(i) = 0, j(i) =0) reaction was studied on an accurate ab intio potential energy surface for the electronic ground state of BrH(2). Both the H + HBr → H(2) + Br abstraction reaction and the H' + HBr → H'Br + H exchange reaction were investigated up to a collision energy of 2.0 eV. It was found that the abstraction channel is dominant at lower collision energies, while the exchange channel becomes dominant at higher collision energies. The total integral cross section of the abstraction reaction at a collision energy of 1.6 eV was found to be 1.37 A?(2), which is larger than a recent quantum mechanical result (1.06 A?(2)) and still significantly smaller than the experimental value (3 ± 1 A?(2)). Meanwhile, similar to the previous theoretical study, our calculations also predicted much hotter product rotational state distributions than those from the experimental study. This suggests that further experimental investigations are highly desirable to elucidate the dynamic properties of the title reactions.     

Accurate time-dependent wave packet study of the Li + H₂⁺ reaction and its isotopic variants

The dynamics and kinetics of the Li + H?? reaction and its isotopic variants (D?? and T??) have been studied by using a time-dependent wave packet (TDWP) coupled-channel (CC) method on the ab initio potential energy surface (PES) of Martinazzo et al. [J. Chem. Phys. 2003, 119, 21]. Total initial v = 0, j = 0 state-selected reaction probabilities for the Li + H?? reaction and its isotopic variants have been calculated from the threshold up to 1 eV for total angular momenta J from 0 to 90. Integral cross sections have been evaluated from the reaction probabilities at collision energies from threshold (≈0.2 eV) up to 1.0 eV collision. The calculated rate constants as a function of temperature show an Arrhenius type behavior in the 200 ≤ T ≤ 1000 K temperature interval. It has been found to be a considerable large intermolecular kinetic isotope effect. The TDWP-CC results are in overall good agreement with those obtained applying the TDWP Centrifugal-Sudden (CS) approximation, showing that the CS approximation is rather accurate for the title reaction.     

H+ versus D+) transfer from HOD+ to N2: mode- and bond-selective effects

Reactions of HOD(+) with N(2) have been studied for HOD(+) in its ground state and with one quantum of excitation in each of its vibrational modes: (001)--predominately OH stretch, 0.396 eV, (010)--bend, 0.153 eV, and (100)--predominately OD stretch, 0.293 eV. Integral cross sections and product recoil velocities were recorded for collision energies from threshold to 4 eV. The cross sections for both H(+) and D(+) transfer rise slowly from threshold with increasing collision energy; however, all three vibrational modes enhance reaction much more strongly than equivalent amounts of collision energy and the enhancements remain large even at high collision energy, where the vibration contributes less than 10% of the total energy. Excitation of the OH stretch enhances H(+) transfer by a factor of ～5, but the effect on D(+) transfer is only slightly larger than that from an equivalent increase in collision energy, and smaller than the effect from the much lower energy bend excitation. Similarly, OD stretch excitation strongly enhances D(+) transfer, but has essentially no effect beyond that of the additional energy on H(+) transfer. The effects of the two stretch vibrations are consistent with the expectation that stretching the bond that is broken in the reaction puts momentum in the correct coordinate to drive the system into the exit channel. From this perspective it is quite surprising that bend excitation also results in large (factor of 2) enhancements of both H(+) and D(+) transfer channels, such that its effect on the total cross section at collision energies below ～2 eV is comparable to those from the two stretch modes, even though the bend excitation energy is much smaller. For collision energies above ～2 eV, the vibrational effects become approximately proportional to the vibrational energy, though still much larger than the effects of equivalent addition of collision energy. Measurements of the product recoil velocity distributions show that reaction is direct at all collision energies, with roughly half the products in a sharp peak corresponding to stripping dynamics and half with a broad and approximately isotropic recoil velocity distribution. Despite the large effects of vibrational excitation on reactivity, the effects on recoil dynamics are small, indicating that vibrational excitation does not cause qualitative changes in the reaction mechanism or in the distribution of reactive impact parameters.     

Collision Dynamics of an Energetic Carbon Ion Impinging on the Stone-Wales Defect in a Single-walled Carbon Nanotube

By employing atomistic simulations based on an empirical potential model and a self-consistent-charge density-functional tight-binding method, the collision dynamics process of an energetic carbon ion impinging on the Stone-Wales defect in a single-walled carbon nanotube was investigated. The outwardly and inwardly displacement threshold energies for the primary knock-on atom in the Stone-Wales defect were calculated to be 24.0 and 25.0 eV, respectively. The final defect configuration for each case was a 5-1DB-T(DB=dangling bond) defect formed in the front surface of the nanotube. Moreover, the minimum incident energy of the projectile prompting the primary knock-on atom displacement was predicted to be 71.0 eV, and the time evolutions of the kinetic and potential energies of the projectile and the primary knock-on atom were both plotted to analyze the energy transfer process.     

Thermally activated mechanisms of hydrogen abstraction by growth precursors during plasma deposition of silicon thin films

Hydrogen abstraction by growth precursors is the dominant process responsible for reducing the hydrogen content of amorphous silicon thin films grown from SiH(4) discharges at low temperatures. Besides direct (Eley-Rideal) abstraction, gas-phase radicals may first adsorb on the growth surface and abstract hydrogen in a subsequent process, giving rise to thermally activated precursor-mediated (PM) and Langmuir-Hinshelwood (LH) abstraction mechanisms. Using results of first-principles density functional theory (DFT) calculations on the interaction of SiH(3) radicals with the hydrogen-terminated Si(001)-(2x1) surface, we show that precursor-mediated abstraction mechanisms can be described by a chemisorbed SiH(3) radical hopping between overcoordinated surface Si atoms while being weakly bonded to the surface before encountering a favorable site for hydrogen abstraction. The calculated energy barrier of 0.39 eV for the PM abstraction reaction is commensurate with the calculated barrier of 0.43-0.47 eV for diffusion of SiH(3) on the hydrogen-terminated Si(001)-(2x1) surface, which allows the radical to sample the entire surface for hydrogen atoms to abstract. In addition, using the same type of DFT analysis we have found that LH reaction pathways involve bond breaking between the silicon atoms of the chemisorbed SiH(3) radical and the film prior to hydrogen abstraction. The LH reaction pathways exhibit energy barriers of 0.76 eV or higher, confining the abstraction only to nearest-neighbor hydrogens. Furthermore, we have found that LH processes compete with radical desorption from the hydrogen-terminated Si(001)-(2x1) surface and may be suppressed by the dissociation of chemisorbed SiH(3) radicals into lower surface hydrides. Analysis of molecular-dynamics simulations of the growth process of plasma deposited silicon films have revealed that qualitatively similar pathways for thermally activated hydrogen abstraction also occur commonly on the amorphous silicon growth surface.     

Quasi-classical trajectory study of Si+O2-->SiO+O reaction

Quasi-classical trajectory calculations for the Si(3P)+O2(X 3Sigmag-)-->SiO(X 1Sigma+)+O(1D) reaction have been carried out using the analytical ground 1A' potential energy surface (PES) recently reported by Dayou and Spielfiedel [J. Chem. Phys. 119, 4237 (2003)]. The reaction has been studied for a wide range of collision energies (0.005-0.6 eV) with O2 in its ground rovibrational state. The barrierless PES leads to a decrease of the total reaction cross section with increasing collision energy. It has been brought to evidence that the reaction proceeds through different reaction mechanisms whose contributions to reactivity are highly dependent on the collision energy range. At low collision energy an abstraction mechanism occurs involving the collinear SiOO potential well. The associated short-lived intermediate complex leads to an inverted vibrational distribution peaked at v'=3 and low rotational excitation of SiO(v',j') with a preferentially backward scattering. At higher energies the reaction proceeds mainly through an insertion mechanism involving the bent and linear OSiO deep potential wells and associated long-lived intermediate complexes, giving rise to nearly statistical energy disposals into the product modes and a forward-backward symmetry of the differential cross section.     

Exact quantum scattering study of the H + HS reaction on a new ab initio potential energy surface H2S (3A")

We present an exact quantum dynamical study and quasi-classical trajectory (QCT) calculations for the exchange and abstraction processes for the H + HS reaction. These calculations were based on a newly constructed high-quality potential energy surface for the lowest triplet state of H(2)S ((3)A"). The ab initio single-point energies were computed using complete active space self-consistent field and multi-reference configuration interaction method with a basis set of aug-cc-pV5Z. The time-dependent wave packet (TDWP) method was used to calculate the total reaction probabilities and integral cross sections over the collision energy (E(col)) range of 0.0-2.0 eV for the reactant HS initially at the ground state and the first vibrationally excited state. It was found that the initial vibrational excitation of HS enhances both abstraction and exchange processes. In addition, a good agreement is found between QCT and TDWP reaction probabilities at the total momentum J = 0 as a function of collision energy for the H + HS (v = 0, j = 0) reaction.     

Fully Coriolis-coupled quantum studies of the H + O2 (upsilon i = 0-2, j i = 0,1) --> OH + O reaction on an accurate potential energy surface: integral cross sections and rate constants

We present accurate quantum calculations of the integral cross section and rate constant for the H + O2 --> OH + O combustion reaction on a recently developed ab initio potential energy surface using parallelized time-dependent and Chebyshev wavepacket methods. Partial wave contributions up to J = 70 were computed with full Coriolis coupling, which enabled us to obtain the initial state-specified integral cross sections up to 2.0 eV of the collision energy and thermal rate constants up to 3000 K. The integral cross sections show a large reaction threshold due to the quantum endothermicity of the reaction, and they monotonically increase with the collision energy. As a result, the temperature dependence of the rate constant is of the Arrhenius type. In addition, it was found that reactivity is enhanced by reactant vibrational excitation. The calculated thermal rate constant shows a significant improvement over that obtained on the DMBE IV potential, but it still underestimates the experimental consensus.     

Hot-atom versus Eley-Rideal dynamics in hydrogen recombination on Ni(100). I. The single-adsorbate case

We compare the efficiency of the Eley-Rideal (ER) reaction with the formation of hot-atom (HA) species in the simplest case, i.e., the scattering of a projectile off a single adsorbate, considering the Hydrogen and Hydrogen-on-Ni(100) system. We use classical mechanics and the accurate embedded diatomics-in-molecules potential to study the collision system over a wide range of collision energies (0.10-1.50 eV), both with a rigid and a nonrigid Ni substrate and for impact on the occupied and neighboring empty cells. In the rigid model metastable and truly bound hot-atoms occur and we find that the cross section for the formation of bound hot-atoms is considerably higher than that for the ER reaction over the whole range of collision energies examined. Metastable hot-atoms form because of the inefficient energy transfer to the adsorbate and have lifetimes of the order 0.1-0.7 ps, depending on the collision energy. When considering the effects of lattice vibrations we find, on average, a consistent energy transfer to the substrate, say 0.1-0.2 eV, which forced us to devise a two-step dynamical model to get rid of the problems associated with the use of periodic boundary conditions. Results for long-lived HA formation due to scattering on the occupied cell at a surface temperature of 120 K agree well with those of the rigid model, suggesting that in the above process the substrate plays only a secondary role and further calculations at surface temperatures of 50 and 300 K are in line with these findings. However, considerably high cross sections for formation of long-lived hot-atoms result also from scattering off the neighboring cells where the energy transfer to the lattice cannot be neglected. Metastable hot-atoms are reduced in number and have usually lifetimes shorter than those of the rigid-model, say less than 0.3 ps. In addition, ER cross sections are only slightly affected by the lattice motion and show a little temperature dependence. Finally, we find also that absorption and reflection strongly depend on the correct consideration of lattice vibrations and the occurrence of trapping.     

Reactions of BBr(n)(+) (n = 0--2) at fluorinated and hydrocarbon self-assembled monolayer surfaces: observations of chemical selectivity in ion--surface scattering

Ion-surface reactions involving BBr(n)(+) (n = 0--2) with a fluorinated self-assembled monolayer (F-SAM) surface were investigated using a multi-sector scattering mass spectrometer. Collisions of the B(+) ion yield BF(2)(+) at threshold energy with the simpler product ion BF(+)* appearing at higher collision energies and remaining of lower abundance than BF(2)(+) at all energies examined. In addition, the reactively sputtered ion CF(+) accompanies the formation of BF(2)(+) at low collision energies. These results stand in contrast with previous data on the ion-surface reactions of atomic ions with the F-SAM surface in that the threshold and most abundant reaction products in those cases involved the abstraction of a single fluorine atom. Gas-phase enthalpy data are consistent with BF(2)(+) being the thermodynamically favored product. The fact that the abundance of BF(2)(+) is relatively low and relatively insensitive to changes in collision energy suggests that this reaction proceeds through an entropically demanding intermediate at the vacuum--surface interface, one which involves interaction of the B(+) ion simultaneously with two fluorine atoms. By contrast with the reaction of B(+), the odd-electron species BBr(+)* reacts with the F-SAM surface to yield an abundant single-fluorine abstraction product, BBrF(+). Corresponding gas-phase ion--molecule experiments involving B(+) and BBr(+)* with C(6)F(14) also yield the products BF(+)* and BF(2)(+), but only in extremely low abundances and with no preference for double fluorine abstraction. Ion--surface reactions were also investigated for BBr(n)(+) (n = 0-2) with a hydrocarbon self-assembled monolayer (H-SAM) surface. Reaction of the B(+) ion and dissociative reactions of BBr(+)* result in the formation of BH(2)(+), while the thermodynamically less favorable product BH(+)* is not observed. Collisions of BBr(2)(+) with the H-SAM surface yield the dissociative ion-surface reaction products, BBrH(+) and BBrCH(3)(+). Substitution of bromine atoms on the projectile by hydrogen or alkyl radicals suggests that Br atoms may be transferred to the surface in a Br-for-H or Br-for-CH(3) transfer reaction in an analogous fashion to known transhalogenation reactions at the F-SAM surface. The results for the H-SAM surface stand in contrast to those for the F-SAM surface in that enhanced neutralization of the primary ions gives secondary ion signals one to two orders of magnitude smaller than those obtained when using the F-SAM surface, consistent with the relative ionization energies of the two materials.     

Vibrational and translational enhancement of endothermic reactions: K + HCl(υ = 0,1) and K + HF(υ = 0,1)

The relative integral cross section for the two endothermic reactions K + HCl(υ = 0 and 1) → KCl + H and K + HF(υ = 0 and 1) → KF + H has been measured as a function of the collision energy E using the crossed molecular beam technique. The vibrationally excited state (υ = 1) has been populated thermally by heating the beam source to temperatures around 2000 K. The variation of the collision energy from thermal up to around 2.1 eV was achieved by seeding the K-beam with various carrier gases. The molecular reaction product was detected by surface ionization in connection with a time-of-flight method. The total energy threshold of the reactions has been found to be equal to or only slightly above the corresponding endothermicities. This suggests a vanishing or very low barrier crest on the potential energy hypersurfaces which is contradictory to recent theoretical results. The inclusion of tunneling in case of K + HF leads to a negligible rise of the barrier heights. The efficacy of translational and vibrational energy in promoting the reactive process has been directly compared over a wide range of collision energies. For K + HCl the vibrational enhancement of the reactivity descends with increasing E from approximately a factor of 10 at E = 0.08 eV to around unity for E ? 0.5 eV. The good agreement of this experimental result with phase space calculations suggests that the marked enhancements are predominantly caused by the long-range attraction between reagents in connection with an “early” barrier on the potential energy surface. In case of K + HF vibrational energy is by a factor of up to 380 more favourable in promoting the reaction than the same amount of translational energy. Again, with rising collision energy its efficacy decreases but promotes the reaction still by a factor of 70 at E = 1.7 eV. Since phase space theory fails here the reaction is certainly non-statistical and we conclude that the observed large efficacy of vibrational energy is due to a “late” barrier. The proposed barrier positions for the two systems are in accordance with theoretical results.     

Quasi-classical trajectory study of the S + OH → SO + H reaction: from reaction probability to thermal rate constant

First quasi-classical trajectory calculations have been carried out for the S((3)P) + OH(X?(2)Π) → SO(X?(3)Σ(-)) + H((2)S) reaction on an ab initio global potential energy surface for the ground electronic state, X?(2)A', of HSO. Cross sections, computed for collision energies up to 1 eV, show no energy threshold and decrease with the increasing collision energy. Rate constants have been calculated in the 5-500 K temperature range. The thermal rate constant is in good agreement with approximate quantum results, while a disagreement is found at 298 K with the experimental data. Product energy distributions have also been reported at four collision energies from 0.001 to 0.5 eV. The shapes of the rovibrational and angular distributions suggest the formation of an intermediate complex that is more and more long-lived as the collision energy increases.     

Mean potential statistical theory of the H+ + D2 → HD + D+ reaction

The reactive collision process H(+) + D(2)(ν = 0, j = 0) → HD + D(+) is theoretically analyzed for collision energies ranging from threshold up to 1.3 eV. It is assumed that the reaction takes place via formation of a collision complex. In calculations, a statistical theory is used, based on a mean isotropic potential deduced from a full potential energy surface. Calculated integral cross sections, opacity functions, and rotational distributions of the HD products are compared with recent statistical and quantum mechanical calculations performed using a full potential energy surface. Satisfactory agreement between the results obtained using the two statistical methods is found, both of which however overestimate the existing quantum mechanical predictions. The effects due to the presence of identical particles are also discussed.     

Quasi-classical trajectory calculations analyzing the reactivity and dynamics of asymmetric stretch mode excitations of methane in the H + CH4 reaction

An exhaustive dynamics study was performed at two collision energies, 1.52 and 2.20 eV, analyzing the effects of the asymmetric (nu3) stretch mode excitation in the reactivity and dynamics of the gas-phase H + CH4 reaction. Quasi-classical trajectory (QCT) calculations, including corrections to avoid zero-point energy leakage along the trajectories, were performed on an analytical potential energy surface previously developed by our group. First, strong coupling between different vibrational modes in the entry channel was observed, indicating that energy can flow between these modes, and therefore that they do not preserve their adiabatic character along the reaction path; i.e., the reaction is nonadiabatic. Second, we found that the reactant vibrational excitation has a significant influence on the vibrational and rotational product distributions. With respect to the vibrational distribution, our results confirm the purely qualitative experimental evidence, although the theoretical results presented here are also quantitative. The rotational distributions are predictive, because no experimental data have been reported. Third, with respect to the reactivity, we found that the nu3 mode excitation by one quantum is more reactive than the ground state by a factor of about 2, independently of the collision energy, and in agreement with the experimental measurement of 3.0 +/- 1.5. Fourth, the state-to-state angular distributions of the products reproduce the experimental behavior at 1.52 eV, where the CH3 products scatter sideways and backward. At 2.20 eV this experimental information is not available, and therefore the results reported here are again predictive. The satisfactory reproduction of a great variety of experimental data by the present QCT study lends confidence to the potential energy surface constructed by our group and to those results whose accuracy cannot be checked by comparison with experiment.     

Crossed beams and theoretical studies of the O(3P)+CH4-->H+OCH3 reaction excitation function

The excitation function for the reaction, O(3P)+CH4-->H+OCH3, has been measured in a crossed molecular beams experiment and determined with direct dynamics calculations that use the quasiclassical trajectory method in conjunction with a recently developed semiempirical Hamiltonian. Good agreement is found between experiment and theory, enabling us to address two fundamental issues for the O(3P)+CH4 reaction that arise for all O(3P)+saturated hydrocarbon reactions: (1) the importance of triplet excited states that correlate adiabatically to ground-state reactants and products and (2) the importance of intersystem crossing processes involving the lowest singlet surface [corresponding to reaction with O(1D)]. Our results indicate that the first excited triplet surface contributes substantially to the cross section when the collision energy exceeds the reaction barrier (approximately 2 eV) by more than 0.5 eV. Although triplet-singlet crossings may occur at all energies, we have found that their effect on the excitation function is negligible for the collision energies studied-up to 1.5 eV above threshold.     

Accurate quantum mechanical calculations of differential and integral cross sections and rate constant for the O+OH reaction using an ab initio potential energy surface

The authors report accurate quantum mechanical studies of the O+OH reaction on the improved Xu-Xie-Zhang-Lin-Guo potential energy surface. The differential cross section was obtained at several energies near the reaction threshold using a time-independent method. The dominant forward and backward peaks in the angular distribution are consistent with a complex-forming mechanism, which is also confirmed by the extensive rotational excitation in the O2 product. However, the asymmetry of these peaks suggests a significant nonstatistical component. The initial state (upsilon i=0, j i=0) specified integral cross section, which was calculated up to 1.15 eV of collision energy using the Chebyshev wave packet method, shows no energy threshold and decreases with the increasing collision energy, consistent with the barrierless nature of the reaction. The resulting rate constant exhibits a negative temperature dependence for T>100 K and decays as the temperature is lowered, in qualitative agreement with available experimental data.