On the Cl*(P-2(1/2)) reactivity and the effect of bend excitation in the Cl+CH4/CD4 reactions

Abstract

The reaction of atomic chlorine with methane was studied in crossed-beam experiments at a collisional energy of E-c approximate to 4.7 kcal/mol. Using a time-sliced product imaging technique, several outstanding issues about this reaction were addressed in this work. It was found that the reactivity of the spin-orbit excited Cl*(P-2(1/2)) atom toward methane is negligibly small, in agreement with the assertion of recent studies. The excitation of methane bending/torsional modes exhibits only modest enhancement in reactivity, in contrast to the previous experiments. The product angular distributions are mainly backscattered for Cl + CD4, and sideways scattered for Cl + CH4. The shapes of the distributions from the ground state and the bend-excited methane are remarkably similar.