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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2022
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://arxiv.org/abs/2209.09129 |
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Table of Contents:
- Optical pumping of molecules provides unique opportunities for control of chemical reactions at a wide range of rotational energies. This work reports a chemical reaction with extreme rotational excitation of a reactant and its kinetic characterization. We investigate the chemical reactivity for the hydrogen abstraction reaction SiO$^+$ + H$_2$ $\rightarrow$ SiOH$^+$ + H in an ion trap. The SiO$^+$ cations are prepared in a narrow rotational state distribution, including super-rotor states with rotational quantum number $\it{(j)}$ as high as 170, using a broad-band optical pumping method. We show that the super-rotor states of SiO$^+$ substantially enhance the reaction rate, a trend reproduced by complementary theoretical studies. We reveal the mechanism for the rotational enhancement of the reactivity to be a strong coupling of the SiO$^+$ rotational mode with the reaction coordinate at the transition state on the dominant dynamical pathway.