On photoexcitation at 193 nm, the (1)(pi,pi*) excited 1,4-pentadien-3-ol appears to be undergoing rapid internal conversion producing-a highly energized ground electronic state, which is followed by dissociation to CH2= CH-CH-CH=CH2 (pentadienyl) and OH radicals as primary products. While the laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) showed that only 1.1% of the nascent OH (X(2)Pi) are produced in the vibrationally excited state with nu = 1, there is no OH produced with nu = 2. The rotational state distribution of OH is found to fit a Boltzmann distribution, characterized by 4 rotational temperature, T-rot, of 1250 +/- 100 K for the nu = 0 and T-rot, of 1020 +/- 100 K for the nu = 1 vibrational states. By measuring the Doppler spectroscopy of the nu = 0 and nu = 1 states of OH, an average relative translational energy of the photofragments is found to be 41.8 +/- 5.0 and 37.4 +/- 5.0 kJ mol(-1), respectively. The real time formation of OH shows a dissociation rate constant of the 1,4-pentadienw-3-ol to be (2.0 +/- 0.4) x 10(7) s(-1). The above dissociation rate in relation to statistical Rice-Ramsperger-Kassel -Marcus (RRKM) theory suggests a resonance stabilization energy of the pentadienyl radical to be 70 kJ mol(-1).