Influence of collision energy and reagent rotation on the cross sections and product polarizations of the reaction F + HCl.

Quasiclassical trajectory calculations have been carried out for the F+HCl reaction in three dimensions on a recent DHSN PES of the ground 1(2)A' electronic state [M. P. Deskevich, M. Y. Hayes, K. Takahashi, R. T. Skodje, and D. J. Nesbitt, J. Chem. Phys. 124, 224303 (2006)]. The effects of the collision energy and the reagent initial rotational excitation on the cross sections and product polarization are studied for the v = 0 and j ≤ 10 states of HCl over a wide collision energy range. It has been found that either the collision energy or the HCl rotational excitation increase remarkably reaction cross sections. The QCT-calculated integral cross sections are in good agreement with previous QM results. A detailed study on product polarization for the title reaction is also performed. The calculated results show that the product rotational angular momentum j' is not only aligned, but also oriented along the direction perpendicular to the scattering plane. The orientation of the HF product rotational angular momentum vector j' depends very sensitively on the collision energy and also affected by the reagent rotation. The theoretical findings and especially the roles of the collision energy and initial rotational momentum on the product polarization are discussed and reasonably explained by the HLH mass combination, the property of the PES, as well as the reactive mechanism.