Using recently developed full-dimensional coupled quasi-diabatic ab initio potential energy surfaces including four electronic ((1)ππ, (1)ππ*, 1(1)πσ*, and 2(1)πσ*) states, the tunneling dynamics of phenol photodissociation via its first excited singlet state (S1 ← S0) is investigated quantum mechanically using a three-dimensional model. The lifetimes of several low-lying vibrational states are examined and compared with experiment. The deuteration of the phenoxyl hydrogen is found to dramatically increase the lifetime, attesting to the tunneling nature of the nonadiabatic dissociation. Importantly, it is shown that owing to the conical intersection topography tunneling in this system cannot be described in the standard adiabatic approximation, which eschews the geometric phase effect since the nonadiabatically computed lifetimes, validated by comparison with experiment, differ significantly from those obtained in that limit.

Relative efficacy of vibrational vs. translational excitation in promoting atom-diatom reactivity: Rigorous examination of Polanyi's rules and proposition of sudden vector projection (SVP) model

The study of gas-phase reaction dynamics has advanced to a point where four-atom reactions are the proving ground for detailed comparisons between experiment and theory. Here, a combined experimental and theoretical study of the dissociation dynamics of the tetra-atomic FH2O system is presented, providing snapshots of the F + H2O → HF + OH reaction. Photoelectron-photofragment coincidence measurements of the dissociative photodetachment (DPD) of the F(-)(H2O) anion revealed various dissociation pathways along different electronic states. A distinct photoelectron spectrum of stable FH-OH complexes was also measured and attributed to long-lived Feshbach resonances. Comparison to full-dimensional quantum calculations confirms the sensitivity of the DPD measurements to the subtle dynamics on the low-lying FH2O potential energy surfaces over a wide range of nuclear configurations and energies.

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