Size and Energy Scaling of Nonstatistical Vibrational Quantum States

Polyatomic molecules are generally believed to behave more statistically as the number of vibrational modes increases. We show that even at the dissociation energy, low mode populations result in many nonstatistical quantum states. We derive a scaling relation for the number of nonstatistical states as a function of molecular size. In molecules with more than 6 atoms this model predicts that the majority of states are nonstatistical at dissociation.