Li + HF and Li + HCl Reactions Revisited I: QCT Calculations and Simulation of Experimental Results

The Li + HF and Li + HCl reactions share some common features. They have the same kinematics, relatively small barrier heights, bent transition states, and are both exothermic when the zero point energy is considered. Nevertheless, the pioneering crossed beam experiments by Lee and co-workers in the 80s (Becker et al., J. Chem. Phys. 1980, 73, 2833) revealed that the dynamics of the two reactions differ significantly, especially at low collision energies. In this work, we present theoretical simulations of their results in the laboratory frame (LAB), based on quasiclassical trajectories and obtained using accurate potential energy surfaces. The calculated LAB angular distributions and time-of-flight spectra agree well with the raw experimental data, although our simulations do not reproduce the experimentally derived center-of-mass (CM) differential cross section and velocity distributions. The latter were derived by forward convolution fitting under the questionable assumption that the CM recoil velocity and scattering angle distribution were uncoupled, while our results show that the coupling between them is relevant. Some important insights into the reaction mechanism discussed in the article by Becker et al. had not been contrasted with those that can be extracted from the theoretical results. Among them, the correlation between the angular momenta involved in the reactions has also been examined. Given the kinematics of both systems, the reagent orbital angular momentum, l , is almost completely transformed into the rotation of the product diatom, j'. However, contrary to the coplanar mechanism proposed in the original paper, we find that the initial and final relative orbital angular momenta are not necessarily parallel. Both reactions are found to be essentially direct, although about 15% of the LiFH complexes live longer than 200 fs.

A new ab initio potential energy surface of LiClH (1A') system and quantum dynamics calculation for Li + HCl (v = 0, j = 0-2) → LiCl + H reaction

A new ab initio potential energy surface (PES) for the ground state of Li + HCl reactive system has been constructed by three-dimensional cubic spline interpolation of 36 654 ab initio points computed at the MRCI+Q/aug-cc-pV5Z level of theory. The title reaction is found to be exothermic by 5.63 kcal/mol (9 kcal/mol with zero point energy corrections), which is very close to the experimental data. The barrier height, which is 2.99 kcal/mol (0.93 kcal/mol for the vibrationally adiabatic barrier height), and the depth of van der Waals minimum located near the entrance channel are also in excellent agreement with the experimental findings. This study also identified two more van der Waals minima. The integral cross sections, rate constants, and their dependence on initial rotational states are calculated using an exact quantum wave packet method on the new PES. They are also in excellent agreement with the experimental measurements.

QUASICLASSICAL TRAJECTORY STUDY OF STEREODYNAMICS FOR THE REACTIONS Li+HF/DF/TF

Stereodynamics of the reaction Li + HF (v = 0,j = 0) → LiF + H and its isotopic variants on the ground electronic state (12A′) potential energy surface (PES) are studied by employing the quasiclassical trajectory (QCT) method. At a collision energy of 2.2 kcal/mol, product rotational angular momentum distributions, P(θr) and P(ϕr), are calculated in the center-of-mass (CM) frame. The results demonstrate that the product rotational angular momentum j′ is not only aligned along the direction perpendicular to the reagent relative velocity vector k, but also oriented along the negative y-axis. The four generalized polarization-dependent differential cross sections (PDDCSs) are also computed. The PDDCS00 distribution shows a sideways scattering for the reaction Li + HF and a strongly backward scattering for the reaction Li + DF . However, it displays both the forward and backward scatterings for the reaction Li + TF . These features demonstrate that the Li + HF and Li + DF reactions proceed predominantly through the direct reaction mechanism. However, the Li + TF reaction undergoes both the direct and indirect reaction mechanisms. The PDDCS21- distribution indicates that the product angular distributions are anisotropic.

Theories of reactive scattering

This paper is an overview of the theory of reactive scattering, with emphasis on fully quantum mechanical theories that have been developed to describe simple chemical reactions, especially atom-diatom reactions. We also describe related quasiclassical trajectory applications, and in all of this review the emphasis is on methods and applications concerned with state-resolved reaction dynamics. The review first provides an overview of the development of the theory, including a discussion of computational methods based on coupled channel calculations, variational methods, and wave packet methods. Choices of coordinates, including the use of hyperspherical coordinates are discussed, as are basis set and discrete variational representations. The review also summarizes a number of applications that have been performed, especially the two most comprehensively studied systems, H+H2 and F+H2, along with brief discussions of a large number of other systems, including other hydrogen atom transfer reactions, insertion reactions, electronically nonadiabatic reactions, and reactions involving four or more atoms. For each reaction we describe the method used and important new physical insight extracted from the results.

Effect of rotational energy on the reaction Li+HF(υ=0,j)→LiF+H: An experimental and computational study

In a crossed molecular-beam study we have measured angular and time-of-flight distributions of the product LiF from the reaction Li + HF(upsilon = 0)-->LiF + H at various collision energies ranging from 97 to 363 meV for three markedly different rotational state distributions of HF obtained at nozzle temperatures close to 315, 510, and 850 K. Particularly, for the low and intermediate collision energies we observe significant effects of the varying j-state populations on the shape of the product angular distributions. At 315 K an additional feature appears in the angular distributions which is interpreted as being due to scattering from HF dimers. The experimental data are compared with simulations of the monomer reaction based on extensive quasiclassical trajectory calculations on a new state-of-the-art ab initio potential energy surface. We find an overall good agreement between the theoretical simulations and the experimental data for the title reaction, especially at the highest HF nozzle temperature.

Heavy atom tunneling in chemical reactions: Study of H+LiF collisions

The H+LiF(X (1)sigma(+),upsilon=0-2,j=0)-->HF(X (1)sigma(+),upsilon',j')+Li(2S) bimolecular process is investigated by means of quantum scattering calculations on the chemically accurate X 2A' LiHF potential energy surface of Aguado et al. [A. Aguado, M. Paniagua, C. Sanz, and J. Roncero, J. Chem. Phys. 119, 10088 (2003)]. Calculations have been performed for zero total angular momentum for translational energies from 10(-7) to 10(-1) eV. Initial-state selected reaction probabilities and cross sections are characterized by resonances originating from the decay of metastable states of the H...F-Li and Li...F-H van der Waals complexes. Extensive assignment of the resonances has been carried out by performing quasibound states calculations in the entrance and exit channel wells. Chemical reactivity is found to be significantly enhanced by vibrational excitation at low temperatures, although reactivity appears much less favorable than nonreactive processes due to the inefficient tunneling of the relatively heavy fluorine atom strongly bound in van der Waals complexes.

Quantum dynamics of the Li+HF→H+LiF reaction at ultralow temperatures

Quantum-mechanical calculations are reported for the Li+HF(v=0,1,j=0)-->H+LiF(v',j') bimolecular scattering process at low and ultralow temperatures. Calculations have been performed for zero total angular momentum using a recent high-accuracy potential-energy surface for the X2A' electronic ground state. For Li+HF(v=0,j=0), the reaction is dominated by resonances due to the decay of metastable states of the Li cdots,...F-H van der Waals complex. Assignment of these resonances has been carried out by calculating the eigenenergies of the quasibound states. We also find that while chemical reactivity is greatly enhanced by vibrational excitation, the resonances get mostly washed out in the reaction of vibrationally excited HF with Li atoms. In addition, we find that at low energies, the reaction is significantly suppressed due to the less-efficient tunneling of the relatively heavy fluorine atom.