Direct ab initio molecular dynamics study of C++H2O: angular distribution of products and distribution of product kinetic energies

Irradiation of water ice by C(+) ions in the cosmic environment

We present a first-principles MD (FPMD) study of the interaction of low-energy, positively charged carbon (C(+)) projectiles with amorphous solid water clusters at 30 K. Reactions involving the carbon ion at an initial energy of 11 and 1.7 eV with a 30-molecule cluster have been investigated. Simulations indicate that the neutral isoformyl radical, COH(•), and carbon monoxide, CO, are the dominant products of these reactions. All of these reactions are accompanied by the transfer of a proton from the reacting water molecule to the ice, where it forms a hydronium ion. We find that COH(•) is formed either via a direct, “knock-out”, mechanism following the impact of the C(+) projectile upon a water molecule or by creation of a COH2(+) intermediate. The direct mechanism is more prominent at higher energies. CO is generally produced following the dissociation of COH(•). More frequent production of the formyl radical, HCO(•), is observed here than in gas-phase calculations. A less commonly occurring product is the dihydroxymethyl, CH(OH)2(•), radical. Although a minor result, its existence gives an indication of the increasing chemical complexity that is possible in such heterogeneous environments.

The role of the excited electronic states in the C+ + H2O reaction

The electronic excited states of the [COH2]+ system have been studied in order to establish their role in the dynamics of the C+ + H2O-->[COH]+ +H reaction, which is a prototypical ion-molecule reaction. The most relevant minima and saddle points of the lowest excited state have been determined and energy profiles for the lowest excited doublet and quartet electronic states have been computed along the fragmentation and isomerization coordinates. Also, nonadiabatic coupling strengths between the ground and the first excited state have been computed where they can be large. Our analysis suggests that the first excited state could play an important role in the generation of the formyl isomer, which has been detected in crossed beam experiments [D. M. Sonnenfroh et al., J. Chem. Phys. 83, 3985 (1985)], but could not be explained in quasiclassical trajectory computations [Y. Ishikawa et al., Chem. Phys. Lett. 370, 490 (2003); J. R. Flores, J. Chem. Phys. 125, 164309 (2006)].

A dynamical study of the Si(+) + H(2)O reaction

A dynamical study of the Si(+) + H(2)O reaction has been carried out by means of a quasiclassical trajectory method that decomposes the reaction into a capture step, for which an accurate analytical potential is employed, and an unimolecular step, in which the evolution of the collision complex is studied through a direct dynamics BHandHLYP/6-31G(d,p) method. The capture rate coefficient has been computed for thermal conditions corresponding to temperatures ranging from 50 to 1000 K. It is concluded that the main reason why the reaction rate is about 10 times smaller than the capture rate (at T = 298 K) is the topology of the potential energy surface of the ground state. It is also concluded that the ratio between the rates of product and reactant generation from the collision complex decreases quite steeply with increasing temperature, and therefore, the reaction rate decreases even more sharply. Exciting the stretching normal modes of water substantially increases that ratio, and moderate rotational excitation does not appear to have a relevant effect. The collision complex is always initially SiOH(2)(+), but in some trajectories, it becomes HSiOH(+), which generates the products, although the former species is the main intermediate.

Quasiclassical trajectories on a finite element density functional potential energy surface: The C++H2O reaction revisited

A new method for the representation of potential energy surfaces (PESs) based on the p version of the finite element method is presented and applied to the PES of the [COH2]+ system in order to study the C++H2O-->[COH]++H reaction through the quasiclassical trajectory method. Benchmark ab initio computations have been performed on the most relevant stationary points of the PES through a procedure that incorporates basis set extrapolations, the contribution of the core correlation energy, and scalar relativistic corrections. The electronic structure method employed to compute the many points needed to construct the PES is a hybrid density functional approach of the B3LYP type with geometry-dependent parameters, which improves dramatically the performance with respect of the B3LYP method. The trajectory computations shed light on the behavior of the COH2+ complex formed in the collision. At a fixed relative translational energy of 0.62 eV, which corresponds to the crossed beam experiments [D. M. Sonnenfroh et al., J. Chem. Phys. 83, 3985 (1985)], the complex dissociates significantly into the reactants (37%). However, the behavior for a thermal sampling at T=300 K is significantly different because only 9% of the trajectories where capture occurs lead to dissociation into the reactants. The latter kind of behavior is coherent with the view that simple ion-molecule reactions proceed quite often at the capture rate provided it is corrected by the fraction of the electronic states which, being nearly degenerate for the reactants, become attractive at short distances. For both T=300 K and crossed beam conditions, the trajectory computations indicate that COH2+ is the critical intermediate, in agreement with a recent work [Y. Ishikawa et al., Chem. Phys. Lett. 370, 490 (2003)] and in contrast with the interpretation of the crossed beam experiments. Besides, virtually all trajectories generate COH++H (>99%), but a significant proportion of the isoformyl cation is formed with enough vibrational energy as to surmount the COH+-HCO+ isomerization barrier, about 37% at T=300 K.