THE POLANYI LECTURE The ins and outs of collision complexes

Abstract

The lecture reviews some very recent developments in the experimental study of quantum state-resolved bimolecular reaction dynamics. The introduction of polarised, Doppler-resolved laser spectroscopy into the traditional pump-probe scheme, has provided a powerful new strategy, which combines the scalar advantages of determining product state distributions, with the vector advantages of determining product state-resolved angular distributions. The new techniques have been applied to three ‘bench-mark’ reactions, each of which proceeds through the intermediacy of a bound collision complex: In each case, analysis of the new state-resolved data in the light of real-time measurements or of quasiclassical trajectory calculations, has clarified the dynamics of these ‘complex’ reactions.