Effects of complex formation on reactions of oxygen with HCl and Ar-HCl

Classical trajectory simulations are used to investigate reactions of HCl and Ar–HCl with atomic oxygen in its ground and first excited states. We focus on the effects of complex formation on reaction cross sections and product state distributions over a range of collision energies. At low collision energies, the argon atom inhibits the formation of the H–O–Cl collision complex and lowers the reaction cross sections. At higher collision energies, the argon atom removes energy from the collision complex, thereby lowering the effective collision energy and increasing the cross sections for reaction. In general, the product state distributions, resulting from reactions of complexes, are shifted to lower energies than the product state distributions of corresponding O+HCl reactions.