Chemistry under strong fields follows some well-known radical-ion rules, but it also offers a number of surprising reaction mechanisms. This talk will focus on roaming chemistry, whereby an atom or molecule roams around the remaining fragment before reacting with it further to form the final products. While roaming typically involves a single atom that lacks sufficient kinetic energy to escape the parent molecule, we will present chemical reactions with diatomic and polyatomic roaming molecules. Experimental measurements (time-resolved and photoion-photoion coincidence) provide the evidence for these exotic chemical reactions while theory (QCISD, CR-CC(2,3), and CASSCF) provides energetics and molecular dynamics simulations. The mechanisms observed can be understood in terms of Brønsted–Lowry acid-base reactions.

Roaming chemical reactions under strong field excitation

256th National Meeting (2018)

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