This volume presents the proceedings of a 1986 Advanced Study Institute entitled "Structure/Reactivity and Thermochemistry of Ions," held at Les Arcs, France, June 30 to July 11, 1986. The format of a NATO Institute is ideally suited to in-depth communications between scien- tists of diverse backgrounds. Particularly in the field of ion physics and chemistry, where on-going research involves physicists, physical chemists, and organic chemists - who use a variety of experimental and theoretical techniques - it is found that in the relaxed but stimula- ting atmosphere of a NATO ASI, each...

The investigation of the elementary reactions of reactive intermediate species began about half a centruy ago with the advent of free radical kinetics as an active area of chemical research. In spite of the relatively greater ease of detection of a species carrying an electrical charge, and the fact that organic chemists had for decades postulated mechanisms involving ionic intermediates, the systematic study of the elementary reactions of ions was delayed for more than twenty years after the first beginnings of free radical kinetics. Even at this writing, in 1978, the word "kinetics" is...