Journal of Physical Chemistry A, Vol.108, No.39, 8119-8124, 2004
Photodissociation of water dimer at 205 nm
A deuterated water dimer, (D2O)(2), absorbs a photon at 205 nm releasing a fragment D atom. The negative angular anisotropy parameters are observed experimentally with photofragment imaging spectroscopy. In this dissociation, one of the translational energy distributions obtained for the fragment D atoms peaks at around 1 kcal mol(-1), which is much smaller than the maximum available energy, 16.2 kcal mol(-1). These results suggest an energy loss process of the fragment D atom, which is induced by a collision with the oxygen atom in the dimer before it leaves the parent molecule. A direct ab initio trajectory calculation for the internal collision process of the D atom in the dimer has been performed. The obtained energy loss is in good agreement with the present experimental results.