Gas-Phase Reactions and Energy Transfer at Very Low Temperatures

Experimental studies of gas-phase chemical reactions and molecular energy transfer at very low temperatures and between electrically neutral species are reviewed. Although work of collisionally induced vibrational and rotational transfer is described, emphasis is placed on very recent results on the rates of free radical reactions obtained by applying the pulsed laser photolysis (PLP)–laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) technique in a CRESU (Cinétique de Réactions en Ecoulement Supersonique Uniforme) apparatus at temperatures as low as 13 K. These measurements demonstrate that quite a wide variety of reactions—including those between two radicals, those between radicals and unsaturated molecules, and even some of those between radicals and saturated molecules—remain rapid at very low temperatures. Theoretical efforts to explain some of these results are described, as is their impact on attempts to model the synthesis of molecules in interstellar clouds.