New Insights into Intermolecular Coulombic Decay in Pyridine Monomers

Recent research by Shaivi Kesari, Amol Tagad, and G. Naresh Patwari investigates ambient-light-induced intermolecular Coulombic decay (ICD) in unbound pyridine monomers. The study critiques a previous report by Barik et al. which suggested that pyridine cations could form through ICD following a three-body collision of excited pyridine molecules. The authors argue that the conditions necessary for such a collision are highly improbable due to the low likelihood of three independently excited pyridine molecules being in close proximity and the short lifetimes of their excited states. Instead, they propose an alternative mechanism where pyridine cations originate from the dissociative ionization of pyridine dimers after a three-photon absorption process. This new understanding could have implications for the study of molecular interactions and photochemical processes involving pyridine and similar compounds. The full paper can be accessed at arXiv:2408.02981.