CURRENT-DENSITY INVESTIGATION OF TUNNELING IN PHOTODISSOCIATION RESONANCES - CH3ONO

The application is described of our recently developed current density analysis of photodissociation to the methyl nitrite (CH3ONO) system. The spectrum exhibits a series of vibrational resonances, or predissoc iating states, arising from a local minimum in the excited state poten tial surface. The degree to which tunneling through the barrier plays a role in their dissociation is investigated by means of the current d ensity at the transition state and a simple semi-classical quantizatio n model. For vibrationally excited resonances, current density maps ar e considerably complicated by the presence of vortices.