N-H photodissociation dynamics of electronically excited aniline: a three dimensional time-dependent quantum wavepacket study.

We have simulated the dynamics of 1πσ* state-mediated nonadiabatic N-H bond dissociation in photo-excited aniline (C6H5NH2). A three electronic state diabatic model potential, involving the ground, 1ππ*, and 1πσ* diabatic states, and focussing on the NH2 degrees of freedom alone is constructed using XMS-CASPT2 energies. Using a kinetic energy operator in the polyspherical framework, wavepacket dynamics in three vibrational modes, viz. NH stretch, NH2 out-of-plane wag and torsion, is carried out using the Chebyshev propagation scheme. For optically bright 1ππ* excitation, the wavepacket can access the 1πσ*/1ππ* and 1ππ/1πσ* conical intersections that lie en route to dissociation. For both intersections, NH2 out-of-plane wag and torsional motions are the most dominant coupling coordinates. Carrying out dynamics with initial wavepackets varying in excitation in the three degrees of freedom, we probe their roles in the evolution of the state populations, probability densities, and product branching for the NH dissociation process.