State-Specific Correlation of Coincident Product Pairs in the F + CD₄ Reaction
Jim J. Lin, Jingang Zhou, Weicheng Shiu, Kopin Liu
Science 300, 966 (2003)

When a chemical reaction forms two molecular products, even if the state resolved differential cross section (DCS) for each product is obtained individually, the coincident attributes of the coproducts are still lacking. We exploit a method that provides coincidence information by measuring the stateresolved, pair-correlated DCS. Exemplified by the reaction F + CD_4à DF + CD₃, a time-sliced ion velocity imaging technique was used to measure the velocity distribution of a state-selected CD3 product and to reveal the information of the coincident DF in a state-correlated manner. The correlation of different product state pairs shows a striking difference, which opens up a new way to unravel the complexity of a polyatomic reaction.