Sensitivity of Exchange-Reaction Probabilities to the Potential-Energy Surface

Abstract

Classical‐mechanical calculations were made to study exchange attending collinear collisions of H+H₂ using a potential‐energy surface proposed earlier by the authors. It was found that the reaction probability is unity for all energies in a certain bounded range, and zero elsewhere. The lower and upper bounds are dependent upon the position of the saddle point of the potential‐energy surface and the relative masses of the atoms. No long‐lived collision complexes were encountered. The vibrational energies of the final molecules were also found to depend strongly upon the position of the saddle point.