The dependence of the branching ratio in the F+HD reaction on the initial rotational state of HD

Both classical trajectory and quantal scattering calculations indicate that the branching ratio in the F+HD reaction varies considerably with the initial rotational state of HD. Information theory argues that this variation must be reflected in the distribution of the reaction products. Hence, given the (normalized) product distribution for each reaction path one should be able to predict the dependence of the branching ratio on the state of the reagents. The trajectory computations of Muckerman are used to illustrate the procedure. First the dynamic constraint is identified and then the reaction probability matrix is constructed. The determination ("synthesis") of the matrix, in terms of the given constraint invokes information theory and, in particular, the procedure of maximising the entropy. The branching ratio is readily computed from the elements of the probability matrix. Very good agreement is obtained between the trajectory-computed and the synthetic branching ratio for all initial rotational states of HD. The F+HD reaction has three possible final arrangement channels (one nonreactive and two reactive ones) and is used to illustrate the structure of the reaction probability matrix and the associated entropy measures.