Infrared Emission from Photodissociation of Methyl Formate [HC(O)OCH3] at 248 and 193 nm: Absence of Roaming Signature.

Following photodissociation at 248 nm of gaseous methyl formate (HC(O)OCH3, 0.73 Torr) and Ar (0.14 Torr), temporally resolved vibration-rotational emission spectra of highly internally excited CO (ν ≤ 11, J ≤ 27) in the 1850-2250 cm-1 region were recorded with a step-scan Fourier-transform spectrometer. The vibration-rotational distribution of CO is almost Boltzmann, with a nascent average rotational energy (ER0) of 3 ± 1 kJ mol-1 and a vibrational energy (EV0) of 76 ± 9 kJ mol-1. With 3 Torr of Ar added to the system, the average vibrational energy was decreased to EV0 = 61 ± 7 kJ mol-1. We observed no distinct evidence of a bimodal rotational distribution for ν = 1 and 2, as reported previously [Lombardi et al., J. Phys. Chem. A 2016, 129, 5155], as evidence of a roaming mechanism. The vibrational distribution with a temperature of ∼13000 ± 1000 K, however, agrees satisfactorily with trajectory calculations of these authors, who took into account conical intersections from the S1 state. Highly internally excited CH3OH that is expected to be produced from a roaming mechanism was unobserved. Following photodissociation at 193 nm of gaseous HC(O)OCH3 (0.42 Torr) and Ar (0.09 Torr), vibration-rotational emission spectra of CO (ν ≤ 4, J ≤ 38) and CO2 (with two components of varied internal distributions) were observed, indicating that new channels are open. Quantum-chemical calculations, computed at varied levels of theory, on the ground electronic potential-energy schemes provide a possible explanation for some of our observations. At 193 nm, the CO2 was produced from secondary dissociation of the products HC(O)O and CH3OCO, and CO was produced primarily from secondary dissociation of the product HCO produced on the S1 surface or the decomposition to CH3OH + CO on the S0 surface.