Calculation of state-to-state differential and integral cross sections for atom-diatom reactions with transition-state wave packets.

A recently proposed transition-state wave packet method [R. Welsch, F. Huarte-Larrañaga, and U. Manthe, J. Chem. Phys. 136, 064117 (2012)] provides an efficient and intuitive framework to study reactive quantum scattering at the state-to-state level. It propagates a few transition-state wave packets, defined by the eigenfunctions of the low-rank thermal flux operator located near the transition state, into the asymptotic regions of the reactant and product arrangement channels separately using the corresponding Jacobi coordinates. The entire S-matrix can then be assembled from the corresponding flux-flux cross-correlation functions for all arrangement channels. Since the transition-state wave packets can be defined in a relatively small region, its transformation into either the reactant or product Jacobi coordinates is accurate and efficient. Furthermore, the grid/basis for the propagation, including the maximum helicity quantum number K, is much smaller than that required in conventional wave packet treatments of state-to-state reactive scattering. This approach is implemented for atom-diatom reactions using a time-dependent wave packet method and applied to the H + D2 reaction with all partial waves. Excellent agreement with benchmark integral and differential cross sections is achieved.