TY - JOUR IS - 36 EP - 7557 SN - 1089-5639 TI - Modeling Photodissociation: Quantum Dynamics Simulations of Methanol AV - public KW - Science & Technology KW - Physical Sciences KW - Chemistry KW - Physical KW - Physics KW - Atomic KW - Molecular & Chemical KW - Chemistry KW - Physics KW - NONADIABATIC DIRECT-DYNAMICS KW - PHOTOCHEMISTRY KW - SPECTROSCOPY KW - PATHWAYS KW - ENERGY N1 - Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by American Chemical Society. This publication is licensed under CC-BY 4.0 . N2 - A comprehensive computational study of the gas-phase photodissociation dynamics of methanol is presented. Using a multiconfigurational active space based method (RASSCF) to obtain multidimensional potential energy surfaces (PESs) on-the-fly, direct quantum dynamics simulations were run using the variational multi-configurational Gaussian method (DD-vMCG). Different initial excitation energies were simulated to investigate the dependence of the branching ratios on the electronic state being populated. A detailed mechanistic explanation is provided for the observed differences with respect to the excitation energy. Population of the lowest lying excited state of methanol leads to rapid hydroxyl hydrogen loss as the main dissociation channel. This is rationalized by the strongly dissociative nature of the PES cut along the O-H stretching coordinate, confirmed by the broad feature in the absorption spectrum. In contrast, more energetic excitations lead mainly to C-O bond breaking. Again, analysis of the diabatic surfaces offers a clear explanation in terms of the nature of the electronic states involved and the coupling between them. The type of calculations presented, as well as the subsequent analysis of the results, should be seen as a general workflow for the modeling of photochemical reactions. ID - discovery10198987 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpca.4c03612 Y1 - 2024/08/28/ PB - AMER CHEMICAL SOC A1 - Cigrang, Leon LE A1 - Worth, Graham A JF - The Journal of Physical Chemistry A VL - 128 SP - 7546 ER -