Quantal wavepacket calculations of reactive scattering

Abstract

There has been a renewed interest in the time-dependent quantum mechanical approach to reactive scattering in the last few years. Many of the bottlenecks in numerically solving the time-dependent Schrodinger equation for atom-diatom exchange reactions, collision-induced dissociation and related processes have been removed with the result that it has become a viable alternative (and sometimes preferable) to the time-independent route. We seem to be at the threshold of studying three dimensional atom-diatom collisions the time-dependent way. The different computational methods that have made this possible and the applications that have created such an interest are reviewed here.