UC Irvine

Velocity-map ion imaging has been used to study the vibrational predissociation dynamics of the HCl dimer following infrared (IR) excitation in the HCl stretch overtone region near 1.77 Å. HCl monomer predissociation products were detected state-selectively using 2 + 1 resonance-enhanced multiphoton ionization spectroscopy. The IR action spectrum shows the free HCl stretch (2ν₁), the bound HCl stretch (2ν₂), and a combination band involving the intermolecular van der Waals stretching mode (2ν₂ + ν₄). Fragment speed distributions extracted from ion images obtained for a range of HCl(v = 0, 1; J) levels following vibrational excitation on the 2ν₁ and 2ν₂ bands yield the correlated product pair distributions. All product pairs comprise HCl(v = 1) + HCl(v = 0) and show a strong propensity to minimize the recoil kinetic energy. Highly non-statistical and mode-dependent HCl product rotational distributions are observed, in contrast to that observed following stretch fundamental excitation. Predissociation lifetimes are also mode-dependent: excitation of the free HCl leads to τ_VP = 13 ± 1 ns, while the bound stretch has a shorter lifetime τ_VP ≤ 6 ns. The dimer dissociation energy determined from energy conservation (D₀ = 397 ± 7 cm^-1) is slightly smaller than the previously reported values. The results are discussed in the context of previous observations for (HF)₂ and (HCl)₂ after excitation of HX stretch fundamentals and models for vibrational predissociation.