Journal of Chemical Physics, Vol.112, No.20, 8904-8909, 2000
Photodissociation of HCN at 157 nm: Energy disposal in the CN(A (2)Pi) fragment
Photodissociation of HCN at 157 nm was found to produce only H and CN(A (2)Pi) through analysis of laser-induced fluorescence experiments. The CN(A (2)Pi) vibrational populations decrease monotonically from v=0 to 3, represent 19 +/- 1% of the available energy and are in good agreement with a prior distribution of 9500 cm(-1) of energy. The rotational distributions of the four vibrational levels are very similar, represent 6.5% of the available energy and are approximately Boltzmann with temperatures near 900 K. The rotational distribution of CN(A (2)Pi,v=0) is compared to several highly simplified reference distributions and approximate agreement is found with a phase space calculation.