Abstract for the talk at 27.03.2007 (15:15 h)

David Luckhaus (UBC Vancouver, Department of Physical Chemistry)

Chemical reaction paths and spectroscopy

Through the observation of tunnelling splittings molecular spectroscopy directly accesses the dynamics of Hydrogen exchange reactions on a molecular level. The interpretation of experimental observations relies on appropriate atomistic models to describe phenomena such as adiabaticity and the resulting "non-statistical" kinetics. The talk focusses on one particular class of models, the reaction path hamiltonian, and the limitations of current formulations in the context of multidimensional tunnelling problems.