Ultrafast time-resolved infrared absorption studies of aqueous chlorine dioxide (OClO) photochemistry are reported. Following photoexcitation at 401 nm, the evolution in optical density at frequencies between 1000 to 1100 cm(-1) is monitored to investigate vibrational energy deposition and relaxation along the asymmetric-stretch coordinate following the reformation of ground-state OClO via geminate recombination of the primary photofragments. The measured kinetics are compared to two proposed models for the vibrational-relaxation dynamics along the asymmetric-stretch coordinate. This comparison demonstrates that the perturbation model derived from molecular dynamics studies is capable of qualitatively reproducing the observed kinetics, where the collisional model employed in previous UV-pump, visible probe experiments demonstrates poor agreement with experiment. The ability of the perturbation model to reproduce the optical-density evolution observed in these studies demonstrates that for aqueous OClO, frequency dependence of the solvent-solute coupling is important in defining the level-dependent vibrational relaxation rates along the asymmetric-stretch coordinate. The absence of optical-density evolution corresponding to the population of higher vibrational levels (n>8) along the asymmetric-stretch coordinate suggests that following geminate recombination, energy is initially deposited into a local Cl-O stretch, with the relaxation of vibrational energy from this coordinate providing for delayed vibrational excitation of the asymmetric- and symmetric-stretch coordinates relative to geminate recombination, as previously observed. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.