Journal of Physical Chemistry A, Vol.105, No.13, 2956-2960, 2001
Experimental and theoretical studies of the reactions of excited calcium atoms with ethyl and n-propyl bromides
To study the effect of the orbital alignment of Ca(P-1(1)) on the product alignment, we have probed the CaBr-(B(2)Sigma (+)) product rotational alignments in the reactions of Ca(P-1(1)) with C2H5Br and n-C3H7Br by means of laser-induced chemiluminescence under single-collision conditions in a beam-gas arrangement. When the laser polarization vector is parallel to the Ca beam for the reaction Ca(P-1(1)) + C2H5Br, the rotation of the CaBr(B(2)Sigma (+)) product seems to be more strongly aligned in comparison with that when the laser polarization vector is perpendicular to the Ca beam but when there is significant overlapping of error bars. However, for the reaction Ca(P-1(1)) + n-C3H7Br, there is no statistical difference in the product rotational alignment when the Ca(P-1(1)) atomic orbital alignment is changed. The values of [P2((J) over cap .(k) over cap)] become less negative as the number of carbons is increased, which is probably attributed to the differences in the mass factors and potential energy surfaces. Quasiclassical trajectory (QCT) based on a LEPS potential energy surface (PES) has been employed to interpret the experimental results.