Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-sjtt6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-22T05:51:37.376Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The rates of unimolecular reactions in gases

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

N. B. Slater
Affiliation:
Gonville and Caius CollegeCambridge

Extract

The molecule of a dissociating gas is treated as a dynamical system with n normal modes of vibration with incommensurable frequencies. The assumption that the molecule dissociates when one coordinate attains a critical high value leads to a unimolecular velocity constant expressed as an integral; analytical expressions are derived for bounds to its value. Calculations in a simple case indicate that the velocity constant is approximately of the form

This is in general agreement with experiment if the constant W is identified with the corresponding empirical energy constant.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge Philosophical Society 1939

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

* Trans. Faraday Soc. 17 (1922), 599.Google Scholar

* Z. Elektrochem. 42 (1936), 94.Google Scholar

* Proc. Cambridge Phil. Soc. 31 (1935), 455.Google Scholar

* This theorem is an extension of one stated for n − 1 = 2 by Hardy, and Littlewood, , Acta Math. 37 (1914), 164Google Scholar; cf. Weyl, , Math. Annalen, 77 (1916), 319CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The surface H must lie within the unit “cube”; this is true of our H if h 2 is small.