Quasiclassical trajectory analysis is now a standard tool to analyze non-minimum energy pathway motion of organic reactions. However, due to the large amount of information associated with trajectories, quantitative analysis of the dynamic origin of reaction selectivity is complex. For the electrocyclic ring opening of cyclopropyl radical, more than 4000 trajectories were run showing that allyl radicals are formed through a mixture of disrotatory intrinsic reaction coordinate (IRC) motion as well as conrotatory non-IRC motion.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF