QUANTUM STEREODYNAMICS OF THE LI+HF(V,J) REACTIVE COLLISION FOR DIFFERENT INITIAL STATES OF THE REAGENT

The effect of the reagent initial state excitation on the reactive cro ss section in the Li+HF(upsilon, j) collision is analyzed for upsilon = 0, 1 and j = 0, 1, 2 and 3. A wave packet treatment is used within t he centrifugal sudden approximation on a global potential energy surfa ce recently proposed [Aguado et al., J. Chem. Phys. 107, 10085 (1997)] . The reaction cross-section for upsilon = 0 is in good agreement with the available experimental data, and for low j shows oscillations as a function of the translational energy which are due to the structure of the transition state. For upsilon = 1 the reaction cross-section in creases by a factor of 10-50 with respect to that of upsilon = 0. The influence of the alignment of the initial angular momentum on the reac tion cross section is studied. 0 1998 American Institute of Physics. [ S0021-9606(98)02345-9].