Isotope branching and tunneling in O(3P)+HD-->OH+D; OD+H reactions.

The O((3)P)+HD and O((3)P)+D(2) reactions are studied using quantum scattering calculations and chemically accurate potential energy surfaces developed for the O((3)P)+H(2) system by Rogers et al. [J. Phys. Chem. A 104, 2308 (2000)]. Cross sections and rate coefficients for OH and OD products are calculated using accurate quantum methods as well as the J-shifting approximation. The J-shifting approach is found to work remarkably well for both O+HD and O+D(2) collisions. The reactions are dominated by tunneling at low temperatures and for the O+HD reaction the hydrogen atom transfer leading to the OH product dominates at low temperatures. Our result for the OH/OD branching ratio is in close agreement with previous calculations over a wide range of temperatures. The computed OH/OD branching ratios are also in close agreement with experimental results of Robie et al. [Chem. Phys. Lett. 134, 579 (1987)] at temperatures above 400 K but the theoretical results do not reproduce the rapid rise in the experimental values of the branching ratio for temperatures lower than 350 K. We believe that new measurements could resolve the long-standing discrepancy between experiment and theory for this benchmark reaction.
((c) 2004 American Institute of Physics.)