Imaging the state-specific vibrational predissociation of the hydrogen chloride-water hydrogen-bonded dimer.

The state-to-state vibrational predissociation dynamics of the hydrogen-bonded HCl-H(2)O dimer were studied following excitation of the HCl stretch of the dimer. Velocity-map imaging and resonance-enhanced multiphoton ionization (REMPI) were used to determine pair-correlated product energy distributions. Following vibrational excitation of the HCl stretch of the dimer, HCl fragments were detected by 2 + 1 REMPI via the f (3)Delta(2) <-- X (1)Sigma(+) and V (1)Sigma(+) <-- X (1)Sigma(+) transitions. REMPI spectra clearly show HCl from dissociation produced in the ground vibrational state with J'' up to 11. The fragments' center-of-mass translational energy distributions were determined from images of selected rotational states of HCl and were converted to rotational state distributions of the water cofragment. All the distributions could be fit well when using a dimer dissociation energy of D(0) = 1334 +/- 10 cm(-1). The rotational distributions in the water cofragment pair-correlated with specific rotational states of HCl appear nonstatistical when compared to predictions of the statistical phase space theory. A detailed analysis of pair-correlated state distributions was complicated by the large number of water rotational states available, but the data show that the water rotational populations increase with decreasing translational energy.