Intramolecular Dynamics

The Fifteenth Jerusalem Symposium reflected the high standards of the former international scientific meetings, which convene once a year at the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Jerusalem to discuss a specific topic in the broad area of quantum chemistry and biochemistry. The topic at this year's Jerusalem Symposium was intramo­ lecular dynamics, a subject of central interest for theoreticians, che­ mists and biologists. During the last two decades, there has been remarkable pro­ gress in our understanding of time dependent phenomena. The development and application of the modern techniques of quantum mechanics and sta­ tistical mechanics to excited-state dynamics and to chemical and biophy­ sical systems constitutes a fast developing current research area. The main theme of the Symposium was built around a conceptual framework for the elucidation of photophysical and photochemical phenomena in atoms, molecules, van der Waals complexes and clusters, condensed phases, poly­ mers and biological supermolecules. The interdisciplinary nature of this research field was deliberated by intensive and extensive interactions between scientists from different disciplines and between theory and experiment. This volume provides a record of the invited lectures at the Symposium.

Inhalt

Do Vibrationally Adiabatic Molecules Exist?.- Algebraic Approach to Molecular Structure and Dynamics.- Are Atoms and Small Molecules Almost the Same?.- Siegert Quantization and Intramolecular Dynamics.- Rotational Rainbows in Collisions Involving van der Waals Molecules.- Interference Effects in Molecular Circular Dichroism Spectra.- Classical Aspects of Wavepacket Dynamics.- Comparison Between Classical and Quantum Dynamical Chaos.- Local and Normal Vibrational States.- The Dynamics of Intramolecularly Coupled Local Modes.- Quantum Dynamics of Gaussian Wave Packets in Anharmonic Vibrational Systems.- Self-Consistent Field and Statistical Wavefunction Methods for Excited Vibrational States of Polyatomic Molecules.- Dynamical Studies of Excited States in Triatomic Molecules.- Intramolecular Vibrational Relaxation of Polyatomic Molecules.- Intramolecular Vibrational Relaxation and Photochemistry in Weakly Bound Organic Dimers.- Spectroscopy of Large Molecules in Supersonic Expansions: Isolated Ultracold Porphyrins.- Intramolecular Relaxation of Open-Shell Organic Cations.- Rotations and Electronic Decay.- Vibrational Energy Flow in van der Waals Molecules.- Trajectories in Large Molecules: A Tunnelling Contribution to Classical Motion.- Dissociation and Intramolecular Dynamics.- Inter- and Intramolecular Dynamics of Vibrationally Highly Excited Polyatomic Molecules.- Photochemical Rearrangement Reactions.- The Morse Potential as a Bridge Between Molecular Structure and Dynamics.- An Optical Potential Model for Isomerization in the Gas Phase.- The Role of Intramolecular Coupling and Relaxation in IR-Photochemistry.- An Analytic Approach to Time Averages and Chaotic Behavior in Quantum Mechanics.- Classical and Quantum Mechanical Studies of Molecular Multiphoton Excitation and Dissociation.- The Effect of Many Body Collective Phenomena on the Rates of Chemical Reactions.- Quantum Mechanical Model of the Dynamics of Desorption Processes.- Intramolecular Dynamics of Polymer Molecules Studied by Longe-Range Non-Radiative Energy Transfer.- Dynamic Structure of Peptides Studied by Multinuclear NMR.- NMR Studies of Protein Dynamics.- Fast Non-Radiative Decay Rates in Metalloproteins.- A Comparison Between Crystallographic Data and Molecular Mechanics Calculations on the Side Chain and Backbone Conformations of Steroids.- The Longe-Range Stiffness and Local Mobility of Double-Stranded DNA.- Nonbonded Interactions and the Acoustic Modes of the Double Helix.- Index of Subjects.