1 research outputs found
A saddle in a corner - a model of collinear triatomic chemical reactions
A geometrical model which captures the main ingredients governing atom-diatom
collinear chemical reactions is proposed. This model is neither near-integrable
nor hyperbolic, yet it is amenable to analysis using a combination of the
recently developed tools for studying systems with steep potentials and the
study of the phase space structure near a center-saddle equilibrium. The
nontrivial dependence of the reaction rates on parameters, initial conditions
and energy is thus qualitatively explained. Conditions under which the phase
space transition state theory assumptions are satisfied and conditions under
which these fail are derived