Quasi-classical models of transition state absorption or emission

Abstract

By making a short-time approximation to the correlation function in the quantum result for transition state absorption (or emission) we obtain the Lorentzian and reflection results as integrals of simple configuration space functions. These and the time-integrated quantum results are used to derive and unify the following descriptions of transition-state absorption: (a) the classical model of Bersohn and Zewail, (b) the time-dependent wave mechanical description by Agrawal, Mohan and Sathyamurthy, (c) the classical trajectory approach by Polanyi and coworkers and (d) the time-independent quantum-mechanical description by Engel, Bacic, Schinke and Shapiro. © 1989.