The OH(v′)+O2(v″) reaction: a new source of stratospheric ozone?

We report a comparative dynamics study of the title reaction using a realistic double many-body expansion potential energy surface (DMBE I) for ground-state HO3 [Mol. Phys. 91 (1997) 301], and a recently reported DMBE II [Chem. Phys. Lett. 334 (2001) 173] surface obtained by modifying DMBE I to fit extensive ab initio calculations corrected for the complete basis set limit. The comparison provides strong evidence that the title reaction can be a significant source of ozone under stratospheric conditions.