https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2006-00027-1
Chemical stereodynamics: retrospect and prospect
Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, 12 Oxford Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138,, Texas A & M University, College Station, Texas, 77843-4242, USA
Corresponding author: a dherschbach@yahoo.com
Received:
8
December
2005
Published online:
8
February
2006
Thematic aspects of chemical stereodynamics are discussed that offer much scope for further development. Particularly emphasized are opportunities to exploit angular correlations to recover information usually presumed to be inaccessible; means to hybridize rotational angular momentum and thereby create spatially oriented or aligned pendular states in which molecular axes are confined to oscillate about the direction of an external field; the major role of atomic electronegativity differences in producing steric preferences in reactivity, by affecting the location of nodes and asymmetric composition in molecular orbitals; and some newly recognized stereodynamic aspects of DNA replication.
PACS: 33.15.Bh – General molecular conformation and symmetry; stereochemistry / 31.10.+z – Theory of electronic structure, electronic transitions, and chemical binding / 83.37.-j – Single molecule kinetics
© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag, 2006
