Session K20 - Poster Session.
POSTER session, Sunday afternoon, April 29
Congressional C, Renaissance Hotel
We did laser pump-probe far-wing scattering experiments to study the photochemical reactions Li* ( 3p) + H2 - LiH (v"= 1, 2, J") + H. We have observed the Li (3p) + H2 - LiH + H reaction . The rotational state distribution of the LiH product for excitation in the red wing is identical to that found in the blue wing region, and it does not show any preference to high or low rotational states and no asymmetry is observed in the reactive to nonreactive branching ratio. We have shown different possibilities for the reactive and nonreactive collisions and give a tentative explanation of the reaction mechanism using the highly accurate ab initio potential energy surfaces. We also show that the harpooning model cannot be used to explain the reaction mechanism in the Li* + H2 collision for all the atomic states from Li(2s) to Li(3d), that is there occurs no long range electron transfer from the metal atom to the hydrogen molecule.