Meldola Medal Lecture. Molecular collisions and the semiclassical approximation

Abstract

9i W. H. Miller, 'The Physics of Electronic and Atomic Collisions.' Invited Lectures and Progress Reports, VIII'th ICPEAC, ed.

Classical versus quantum vibrational state distributions for the benchmark polyatomic reaction OH+D2: Checking the validity of the QCT method

“…However, while QCT-GB can be justified (to some extent) from first principle by making Planck constant tending to zero in the formal equations of quantum mechanics [32][33][34][35][36][37][38], QCT-1GB cannot [27,28]. The latter is expected to lead to the same predictions as QCT-GB only when the distribution in the action space (x 1 , x 2 , x 3 ) is sufficiently smooth [28].…”

“…This is also an idea to which the classical S matrix theory (CSMT) of Miller and Marcus leads [32][33][34][35][36][37][38]. In QCT calculations performed in a quantum spirit, one should thus calculate the final observables only from those classical paths connecting integer actions of the reagents and integer actions of the products.…”

Semiclassical theory of molecular collisions: collinear atom harmonic oscillator collisions with attractive interactions

“…In the present paper semiclassical collision theory [2,3,5,[34][35][36][37][38][39] is applied to collinear atom-molecule collisions where the interaction between them possesses an attractive well. There has been considerable interest in this problem [2] and several exact quantum-mechanical calculations have been made [40][41][42][43][44][45][46].…”

Insights into the semiclassical Wigner treatment of bimolecular collisions

“…Hence, for several decades, intense researches aim at building semiclassical methods taking into account the largest quantum effects while keeping with the classical description of nuclear motions [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33]. Moreover, developping such methods naturally leads to shed light on the complex frontier between the quantum and classical descriptions of motion.…”

“…Phys. 62, 1544(1975 65, 1289(1976 75, 186 (1981)], the backward picture of molecular collisions [L. Bonnet, J. Chem. Phys.…”