Role of energy in reactive molecular scattering: An in form a tion-theoretic approach

R. B. Bernstein, R. D. Levine

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Abstract

This chapter discusses the role that information–theoretic methods have played in dealing with the reactive molecular scattering. The information–theoretic approach has made possible the compaction of data in the fields of molecular beam kinetics, chemiluminescence, and chemical lasers. The surprisal analysis of vibrational population inversions often leads to a one-parameter description of the disequilibrium in fast exoergic elementary reactions. This is of importance in characterizing the gain in chemical lasers. Another practical application of the information–theoretic approach is to the evaluation of the entropy cycle involved in the operation of a maser or laser. However, the most fundamental practical application is the simplification in the description of severely non-Boltzmann state distributions. The key to the approach is the concept of the surprisal, the deviation from expectation on the basis of microcanonical equilibrium. Clearly the deviation is a less structured function of the classical energy variable than the populations themselves; hence the practical advantage of the present approach in the description of nonequilibrium processes, including state population distributions and product branching ratios.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)215-297
Number of pages83
JournalAdvances in Atomic and Molecular Physics
Volume11
Issue numberC
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Jan 1976

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