Solvated electron yields in liquid and supercritical ammonia--a statistical mechanical treatment.

Earlier the geminate recombination of ions and solvated electrons, produced by ionizing radiation or laser light, was theoretically treated by a model which consisted of a Rydberg atom interacting with the thermodynamic fluctuations of the medium [R. Schiller, J. Chem. Phys. 92, 5527 (1990)]. The theory was applied to liquid-to-supercritical water [R. Schiller and Á. Horváth, J. Chem. Phys. 135, 084510 (2011)]. Now it is compared with recent experiments performed on liquid-to-supercritical ammonia [J. Urbanek, A. Dahmen, J. Torres-Alacan, P. Königshoven, J. Lindner, and P. Vöhringer, J. Phys. Chem. B 116, 2223 (2012)]. The agreement between theory and experiment seems to be reasonable. The treatment is critically assessed.