The Quantum Transition State

Abstract

For nearly a century, the transition state---the structure organizing motion between reactants and products---has seemed to lack an exact quantum counterpart. Its geometry---a recrossing-free dividing surface whose one-way flux gives the exact rate---seems to require position and momentum direction at once, in tension with the uncertainty principle. The obstruction seems fundamental. It is not. The exact quantum equations generate a phase-space flow whose stable and unstable manifolds intersect in a unique bounded trajectory---the quantum transition state---that anchors such a surface. Quantum mechanics does not destroy the transition state; it becomes quantum.