Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 6, 2026

Orientational Transition in a Liquid Crystal Triggered by the Thermodynamic Growth of Interfacial Wetting Sheets
Published on: May 15, 2017
Definability of no-return transition states in the high-energy regime above the reaction threshold
Chun-Biu Li1, Akira Shoujiguchi, Mikito Toda
1Nonlinear Science Laboratory, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Faculty of Science, Kobe University, JST/CREST, Nada, Kobe 657-8501 Japan. cbli@kobe-u.ac.jp
Abstract:
No-return transition states (TSs) defined in multidimensional phase space, where recrossing trajectories through the commonly used "configuration" TS pass only once, robustly exist up to a moderately high-energy regime above the reaction threshold, even when nonlinear resonances among the bath degrees of freedom perpendicular to the reaction coordinate result in local chaos. However, at much higher energy when global chaos appears in the bath space, the separability of the reaction coordinate from the bath degrees of freedom starts to lose locally. In the phase space near the saddles, it is found that the slower the system passes the TS, the more recrossing trajectories reappear. Their implications and mechanisms are discussed concerning to what extent one can define no-return TSs in the high-energy regime above the reaction threshold.
Related Concept Videos
Energy Diagrams, Transition States, and Intermediates
Transition State Theory
SN2 Reaction: Transition State
When the nucleophile approaches the electrophilic carbon with its lone pairs, the halide acts as a leaving group and moves away with the electron-pair bonded to the carbon. Dotted partial bonds represent the bonds being formed or broken...
Deactivation Processes: Jablonski Diagram
States of Matter and Phase Changes
Reaction Mechanisms: The Steady-State Approximation

