Professor Emeritus
315

Molecular Dynamics: Energy Transfer · Supercollisions: Collisions that transfer an inordinately large quantity of energy per a single collision are called supercollisions. They were first found experimentally by us in 1988 and theoretical work has since continued on the subject. The effect of a minor fraction of supercollisions on the rates of chemical reactions is evaluated and their contribution to the overall average energy transfer is calculated. · Trajectory calculations: Classical trajectory calculations of collisions between bath atoms and molecules and highly excited polyatomic molecules are performed. Using ab initio and assumed inter- and intramolecular potentials, average energy transferred per collision quantities and collisional energy transfer probability density functions are calculated for an assortment of polyatomic-monatomic and polyatomic-polyatomic systems and a variety of initial conditions. · Cluster dissociations: The dynamics of large molecules with up to 1000 internal modes, as well as cluster dissociation are studied for a variety of initial conditions.

Biography

Ph.D: University of California, Santa Barbara, 1969

Selected publications

V. Bernshtein and I. Oref, Intramolecular Energy Redistribution in C60 Following High Energy Collisions with, Chem. Phys. Lett. 313, 52-56 (1999). V. Bernshtein and I. Oref, Dynamics and Energy Release in Benzene/Ar Cluster-Dissociation, J. Chem. Phys. 112, 686 (2000). V. Bernshtein and I. Oref, Surfacediffusion and desorption of exohedral Li+ from the surface of fullerene Phys. Rev. A 63, 043201 (2001). V. Bernshtein and I. Oref, Termolecular collisions between benzene and Ar. J. Chem. Phys. 118, 10611-10622 (2003). V. Bernshtein and I. Oref, Energy transfer between polyatomic molecules 1-gateway modes, energy transfer quantities and energy transfer probability density functions in Benzene-Benzene and Ar-Benzene Collisions. J. Phys. Chem. B (2005), 109(17), 8310-8319. V. Bernshtein and I. Oref, Energy Transfer Between Polyatomic Molecules II, Energy Transfer Quantities and Probability Density Functions in Benzene, Toluene, p-Xylene and Azulene Collisions. J. Phys. Chem. A (2006), 110, 1541-1551. V. Bernshteina, I. Oref,Chen-Lin Liub, Hsu Chen Hsub, Chi-Kung Nib, Experimental and computational investigation of Energy Transfer between Azulene and Krypton, Chem. Phys. Lett. In press.