Semiclassical wave packet study of anomalous isotope effect in ozone formation

We applied the semiclassical initial value representation method to calculate energies, lifetimes, and wave functions of scattering resonances in a two-dimensional potential for O+O2 collision. Such scattering states represent the metastable O3* species and play a central role in the process of ozone formation. Autocorrelation functions for scattering states were computed and then analyzed using the Prony method, which permits one to extract accurate energies and widths of the resonances. We found that the results of the semiclassical wave packet propagation agree well with fully quantum results. The focus was on the 16O16O18O isotopomer and the anomalous isotope effect associated with formation of this molecule, either through the 16O16O+18O or the 16O+16O18O channels. An interesting correlation between the local vibration mode character of the metastable states and their lifetimes was observed and explained. New insight is obtained into the mechanism by which the long-lived resonances in the delta zero-point energy part of spectrum produce the anomalously large isotope effect.