Figure 1

Vibrational ICD. Upper panel: The left molecule is in its electronic ground state and is vibrationally excited while the neighbor is in its ground state. Middle panel: The vibrational excess energy of the left molecule is transferred to the neighbor and ionizes it. Lower panel: The molecule is now in its electronic and vibrational ground state and the neighbor possesses 1 electron less. At large distances between the molecule and its neighbor the rate of vibrational ICD is given in closed form in Eq. (5). Note that the equation formally also covers cases where the neighbor is in an excited state. The figure is by courtesy of Till Jahnke.