Conventional expectation of translation to vibration energy transfer is that the probability decreases exponentially with the amount of energy transferred. We show, however, that in collisions between a pair of atom/molecule for which chemical reactions may potentially occur, such as those between a hyperthermal H atom and an ambient acetylene molecule, translation to vibration energy transfer can occur with surprisingly high efficiency through chemical complex formation using nanosecond time-resolved infrared emission observations which are supported by quasi-classical trajectory calculations reported by Bowman and coworkers (J. Chem. Phys. 136  , 214313, 2012). We show that a portion of collisions between H atoms moving with ~60 kcal/mole energy result in transfer of as much as 70% of this energy into the vibrational degrees of freedom of acetylene. 

Super energy transfer collisions through chemical complex formation

245th National Meeting (2013)

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