Photodissociation dynamics of the methylsulfinyl radical at 248 nm

The photodissociation dynamics of jet-cooled methylsulfinyl radicals, CH3SO, at 248 nm have been investigated using molecular beam photofragment translational spectroscopy. The primary channel is CH3S + O, which occurs via the initially prepared excited CH3SO state by rapid cleavage of the S-O bond to produce ground state products. The minor SO + CH3 channel has two components in comparable proportions: a fast feature corresponding to rapid C-S cleavage on the excited state to produce CH3 and electronically excited SO, and a slow feature due to internal conversion of CH3SO followed by statistical dissociation on the ground electronic state. Statistical ground state dissociation also produces small amounts of CH2SO, likely sulfine, and H-atoms. [GRAPHICS]