Role of angular momentum match in state-to-state reactive scattering and product rotational state distributions

The method of distorted-wave Born approximation has been highly successful in treating fewnucleon transfer reactions in nuclear physics. Considering its relatively recent introduction to molecular reactions, it is of great interest to examine its validity in various applications. In the present study we limit ourselves to the study of product rotational state distributions in the atom—diatomic-molecule reactive scattering F+${\mathrm{H}}_2$→HF+H. It is found that the predicted first peak positions in the product rotational state distributions are in reasonable correlation with observation. The trend of the peak position shift toward the lower rotational angular momentum state of product molecule with the enhancement of the product-state vibrational manifold is also predicted to be in good correlation with observation. From the present study, we find that angular momentum matching plays a significant role in characterizing the product rotational state distributions. The peak position in the distribution is found to occur where the angular momentum match is most favorable.