John C. Light
Born November 24, 1934 in Mount Vernon, New York, USA.
Professor of Chemistry, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.
Email:j-light@uchicago.edu
WWW: external link
NSF Fellow, Universite Libre de Bruxelles; Sloan Foundation Fellow; Fellow, American Physical Society; Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Author of:
Over 160 articles in chemical physics. Editor of Journal of Chemical Physics, 1983–1998; Senior Associate Editor, 1998–.
Important Contributions:
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Phase Space theory of Chemical Reactions:
A quantum or classical statistical limit of chemical reactions based on asymptotic densities of states with conservation of energy and angular momentum. A limiting case, perhaps valid for complex reactions.
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Theoretical methods of quantum dynamics:
Exponential (Magnus) expansion of the time evolution operator;
Unitary time evolution via Iterative Lanczos propagators;
R-matrix propagation for solution of close coupled quantum scattering equations,
Direct methods for resonances and Siegert parameters;
Basis Representations for nuclear dynamics [Discrete variable representations,
Distributed Gaussian basis representations,
Sequential diagonalization/truncation (adiabatic/sudden bases)]
Applications to photodissociation, chemical reactions, vibration/rotation spectroscopy of polyatomic molecules, surface scattering.
