Journal of Chemical Physics, Vol.104, No.5, 1958-1965, 1996
Trajectory Calculations of Relative Center-of-Mass Velocities in Collisions Between Ar and Toluene
Average velocities of Ar relative to the center of mass of toluene in bimolecular collisions were determined using quasiclassical trajectory calculations. The collision durations were binned in 20 fs and 100 fs bins and for each bin the velocities of all trajectories were averaged. 10000 trajectories were calculated. About 64% of all collisions were elastic and the rest were inelastic collisions. The remaining 36% inelastic collisions can be classified into four types. (a) Impulsive collisions of duration 0-300 fs (62%). (b) Chattering collisions of duration longer than 300 fs but Shorter than intramolecular vibrational relaxation (IVR) times (>30%). (c) Complex forming collisions which last longer than molecular IVR times but less than complex (molecular+transition modes) IVR times and complex forming collisions which last longer than complex IVR times. The latter may lead to statistical distribution of energy in the collision complex. These long lived trajectories have negligible contribution to the value of the average energy transferred. (d) Supercollisions (0.12%) which are collisions which transfer an inordinate amount of energy in one event. The details of the collisional process are discussed and sample distributions are presented. Analysis of the collision events indicate that out-of-plane vibrations and overall rotations play a major role in the energy transfer mechanism. A comparison with existing analytical energy transfer models is presented and it is shown that some of them do not agree with the present trajectory calculation results. It is suggested that supercollisions in the gas phase and in solution play a major role in chemical reactions.
Keywords:HIGHLY EXCITED MOLECULES;ENERGY-TRANSFER;POLYATOMIC-MOLECULES;CHEMICAL-REACTIONS;WALK MODEL;RELAXATION;DEPENDENCE;TEMPERATURE;AZULENE