Reactive scattering of a supersonic oxygen atom beam O + Cl₂at threshold

Abstract

Reactive scattering of O atoms with Cl2 molecules has been studied at an initial translational energy of 13·5 kJ mol-1 using a supersonic beam of O atoms seeded in Ne. Velocity distributions of OCl product were measured by cross-correlation time-of-flight analysis. A contour map of the differential reaction cross-section has been obtained which shows peaking in the forward direction with a lower intensity 0·30 ± 0·1 in the backward direction. The velocity of scattering in the forward direction is higher than that of the wide angle scattering. These features are similar to those observed at higher energy for O atoms seeded in He. It is concluded that the reaction dynamics are confined to the triplet potential energy surface corresponding to the O-Cl-Cl configuration with 3II symmetry when collinear and 3 A″ symmetry when bent.