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An unconventional time dependent formula for total photodissociation cross sections shows the importance of short time dynamics in direct photofragmentation. This is exploited to provide a systematic expansion in powers of h/ for the cross section. The lowest order term is a classical cross section which is shown to be an improvement upon the venerable reflection approximation. Terms to higher order in h/ lead to even greater improvements in accuracy as shown by simple numerical examples. Our formulas are directly applicable to polyatomic photofragmentation, and as a spinoff we derive the polyatomic generalization of the (diatomic) reflection method.
Eric J. Heller (Wed,) studied this question.