Laser photodissociation of ketene at 230 nm Original Research Article

Ketene in a molecular beam is excited at the onset of its X̃ 1A1 → B̃ 1B1 absorption band by laser light at 230 nm. The rovibrational population distribution in the CO photofragment, formed in the dissociation, is probed by REMPI. The phase space theory (PST) is applied to the dissociation channels leading respectively to CO+CH2(ã 1A1) and CO+CH2(b̃ 1B1). For the latter, the PST calculations lead to an average rotational energy in CO which is not compatible with the measured value, thus suggesting that this channel does not represent an important contribution to the dissociation process.