A fully geometrical analysis of indirect reactive scattering

The classical dynamics of 2 degree-of-freedom scattering may be geometrically analyzed by means of an extension of the periodic orbit dividing surface theory. The C+NO reaction is taken as an example. We show that the antisymmetric stretch provides a new analyzing tool because its basin of attraction extends throughout the allowed configuration space, even if it does not divide the reaction channel into a reactant part and a product part. We analyze low-energy collisions and show that the vibrational transition probabilities may be traced back to areas of intersecting surfaces. At high energy, the total reaction rate is also calculated by intersection areas. The importance of scattering chaos is shown by surrounding the entrance and exit gates of the reaction by halos.