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SUMMARY:Electronic friction and excitations in molecule-surface interactio
 ns - M. Persson\, Surface Science Research Centre\, Dept. of Chemistry\, T
 he University of L:iverpool
DTSTART:20080117T160000Z
DTEND:20080117T170000Z
UID:TALK9908@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Stephen Walley
DESCRIPTION:A long-standing issue in surface science has been the role of 
 electronic non-adiabaticity in the interactions of atoms and molecules wit
 h metal surfaces. The absence of any energy gap for electron-hole pair exc
 itations of a metal substrate results in general of a breakdown of the adi
 abatic (Born-Oppenheimer) approximation for the electronic motion in respo
 nse to ionic motion. A key question is whether this electronic non-adiabat
 icity is sufficiently strong to be important in dynamical processes at sur
 faces or not. The progress in the theoretical description of the electroni
 c structure of adsorbates using density functional theory has made it poss
 ible to calculate the electronic non-adiabatic coupling for more or less r
 ealistic systems and we can now address this question in a more quantitati
 ve manner. A most elementary case is provided by electron-hole pair dampin
 g of adsorbate vibrations\, whose theoretical treatment will be the starti
 ng point for this talk that will cover theory of electronic adiabaticity i
 n transition state dynamics\, hot-electron induced surface chemistry\, che
 mically-induced electronic excitations upon adsorption of atoms and molecu
 les\, and exo-electron emission in vibrational de-excitation in scattering
  from surfaces?
LOCATION:Mott Seminar Room\, Cavendish Laboratory\, Department of Physics
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