Ramachandran, Dr. Bala "Ramu"

Program Chair, Associate Professor of Chemistry

Degrees

PhD-Chemistry: Kansas State University-1987
MS-Chemistry: Indian Institute of Technology, India-1982
BS-Chemistry: University of Calicut, India-1980

Contact Info

Office: Carson-Taylor Hall 305
Email: ramu@chem.latech.edu
Phone: (318) 257-3388
Home Page: http://www.latech.edu/~ramu

Areas of Specialization

Research Areas/Interests

My main research interests are in the general area of gas phase reaction dynamics. I use quantum mechanics and classical mechanics to study the dynamical processes involved in chemical reactions, at the level of individual atoms and molecules. I have been, and continue to be involved in the development of quantum variational methods for atom-molecule reactive scattering. Most of this work tends to be intensely computational in nature, and requires the use of state of the art supercomputers. I also have an interest in semiclassical mechanics, classically chaotic systems and the ways in which classical chaos is reflected in quantum mechanical systems.

Publications

B. Ramachandran and K. G. Kay, "Semiclassical Ergodic Properties of the Henon-Heiles System," J. Chem. Phys. 83, 6316 (1985).
B. Ramachandran and K. G. Kay, "Local Ergodicity as a Probe for Chaos in Quantum Systems: Application to the Henon- Heiles System," J. Chem. Phys. 86, 4628 (1987).
K. G. Kay and B. Ramachandran, "Classical and Quantum Pseudoergodic Regions of the Henon-Heiles System," J. Chem. Phys. 88, 5688 (1988).
B. Ramachandran, T. G. Wei and R. E. Wyatt, "The Relative Performances of the Kohn, Schwinger and Newton Variational Principles in Scattering Theory," J. Chem. Phys. 89, 6785 (1988).
B. Ramachandran, T. G. Wei and R. E. Wyatt, "The Role of Basis Set Expansions in the Relative Performanaces of the Schwinger and Newton Variational Principles," Chem. Phys. Lett. 151, 540 (1988).
B. Ramachandran and R. E. Wyatt, "How Variational Principles in Scattering Theory Work," in Supercomputer Algorithms for Reactivity, Dynamics and Kinetics of Small Molecules, NATO ASI Series, Ed. A. Lagana (Kluwer Academic Publishers, Holland, 1989).
B. Ramachandran and R. E. Wyatt, "The Schwinger and Newton Variational Methods for the Log-Derivative Matrix," J. Chem. Phys. 91, 1096, (1989).
B. Ramachandran and K. G. Kay, "Semiclassical Expectation Values by Adiabatic Switching: Trapping and Tunneling in the Chaotic Regime," Phys. Rev. A 41, 1757, (1990).
B. Ramachandran, M. D'Mello and R. E. Wyatt, "The Newton Variational Functional for the Log-Derivative Matrix: Use of the Reference Energy Green's Function in an Exchange Problem," J. Chem. Phys. 93, 8110, (1990).
B. Ramachandran and K. G. Kay, "The influence of classical resonances on quantum energy levels," J. Chem. Phys. 99, 3659 (1993).
X. Wu, B. Ramachandran and R.E. Wyatt, "A single arrangement variational method for total reaction probabilities," Chem. Phys. Lett. 214, 118 (1993).
X. Wu, B. Ramachandran and R.E. Wyatt, "A single arrangement variational method for reactive scattering: total and state-resolved reaction probabilities," J. Chem. Phys. 101, 9395 (1994).
B. Ramachandran, "MOBY Molecular Modeling on the PC, Version 1.5," software review, J. Chem. Educ. 71, A228 (1994).
B. Ramachandran and P.C. Kong, "Three dimensional graphical visualization of one-electron atomic orbitals," J. Chem. Educ. 72, 406 (1995).
B. Ramachandran, X. Wu and R.E. Wyatt, "A single arrangement variational method for quantum mechanical reactive scattering," in Toward Teraflop Computing and Other Grand Challenge Applications, Eds. R. Kalia and P. Vashishta, Nova Science, Commack, NY (1995).
B. Ramachandran, "Examining the shapes of atomic orbitals using Mathcad," J. Chem. Educ. 72, 1082 (1995).
B. Ramachandran, X. Wu and R.E. Wyatt, "Sparse matrices and iterative solutions in atom-molecule reactive scattering," International Journal of Computer Research (in press).
B. Ramachandran, J. Senekowitsch and R.E. Wyatt, "A new potential surface for the reaction O(³P) + HCl (X ¹Sigma⁺) ---> OH (X ²Pi) + Cl (²P)," J. Mol. Struct. THEOCHEM 388, 57 (1996).
B. Ramachandran, J. Senekowitsch and R.E. Wyatt, "A quasiclassical trajectory study of the reaction O(³P) + HCl (v=2, j=1,6,9) ---> OH (v',j') + Cl(²P) on a new potential surface," Chem. Phys. Lett. 270, 387 (1997).