Inter- and Intra-Molecular Dynamics of Highly Vibrationally Excited Molecules

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In this project funded by the Physical Chemistry Program of the Chemistry Division, Hai-Lung Dai of the University of Pennsylvania will pursue a program of research on the dynamics of highly vibrationally excited molecules. This project will extend work on the detailed relaxation mechanisms and rates of very highly excited systems to low temperature and will investigate the underlying principles governing inelastic rovibrational processes across a broader kinetic energy regime of the same high vibrational level. A second set of experiments uses van der Waals complexes to study energy transfer from a highly vibrationally excited molecule to a nearby cold molecule to gain insight into different coupling mechanisms, super collisions, and energy transfer in molecules excited at fixed energies. Techniques such as kinetic quantum beat spectroscopy and time-resolved Fourier transform emission spectroscopy will be used to correlate the inter- and intra-molecular interactions for both types of experiment. This work will assist in understanding a wide variety of collisional phenomena, such as nucleation and low temperature reaction dynamics. As such, this work has relevance to societal concerns such as more efficient combustion of fuels and problems in atmospheric chemistry such as the formation and destruction of the Arctic and Antarctic ozone holes.