The following solutions are fully worked through in a PDF that is available to print.
1. (a) To measure the partitioning of energy in between vibration, rotation and translation of an exothermic
atom transfer reaction
A + BC → AB(v', j') + C
use laser pump-probe methods.
(b) , so a larger value for shows that a greater amount of the available energy goes into that
particular mode of motion.
H + Cl2 → HCl(v', j') + Cl: This is an example of a light attacking atom reaction, and consequently
initial orbital angular momentum of the reactants goes into product rotational excitation.
For this particular type of reaction, cos2β ≈ 0, and β ≈ 90°. Therefore, Polanyi's rules may be applied to
the light attacking atom reaction.
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