Rotational state distribution of HCl formed in the infrared multiphoton dissociation of trichloroethene

The rotational state distributions of HCl(v = 0 and 1) formed in the infrared multiphoton dissociation of trichloroethene have been measured by employing the (2+1) resonantly enhanced multiphoton ionization technique combined with time-of-flight mass spectrometry. The distributions could be well reproduced by Boltzmann distributions. The rotational temperatures were determined to be 910±100 and 490±160 K for v = 0 and 1, respectively. The rotational distribution of HCl(v = 0) produced by a probe laser was also obtained. The energy disposal to the product HCl has been discussed on the basis of two elimination processes, three- and four-center ones.