Physics of a chemical reaction: looking for textbook recs

[bt623]

I'm currently doing a literature review on ultracold chemistry with an emphasis on collisional theory and quantum phenomena. I'm an undergraduate physics major, and I'd start my discussion of this topic by moving from basic Newtonian conservation laws and concepts like Coulomb repulsion to the idea of chemical reactions occurring. I'm hoping to move downward from statistic models presented in thermodynamics to considering a chemical reaction ( for example a sea of cations and anions forming salt or simple covalent bonding) from the principles of cross-sectional interactions and field interaction, but I need to consult some textbook addressing the physics and chemistry.

Does anyone have any textbooks they are fond of that describe chemical reactions from a physical/physics interpretation, particularly how one describing the interactions through interactions with the nucleus and surrounding local fields involved in the reactions?

 

[HAYAO]

Earlier development of theory of chemical reactions lead to Nobel going to Hoffmann and Fukui. The molecular orbital theory of chemical reaction might give you an intuitively easy explanation. If you are going past that, then I don't know. The quantum theory of chemical reactions is a relatively new field of chemistry, and sophisticated calculations only came after development of computational chemistry with the introduction of high-performance computers in the past few decades. I am not sure if we can find a textbook exclusively on quantum chemical theory of reactions, especially when concerning fields. I am also curious to know.

 

[Ygggdrasil]

It seems like there might be two different issues here that most chemists would study separately:
1. The thermodynamics of chemical reactions (i.e. which bonds break and which bonds form in a chemical reaction). This would be the topic with the most complicated quantum mechanics to understand the nature of the chemical bond.

2. The kinetics of chemical reactions (i.e. how fast to chemical reactions occur). Here, the connections to collision theory and statistical mechanics are more relevant. This topic involves the kinetic theory of gases, the Arrehnius equation, the Eyring equation, and transition state theory. The quantum mechanics from above would be relevant to finding the energy landscape that defines the transition state and activation energy (though how one performs such calculations is beyond my knowledge).

Not sure of which textbooks might be helpful, but perhaps this helps focus your search. For kinetics, most physical chemistry or chemistry-focused stat mech texts should have chapters on the kinetic theory of gasses and its relation to the kinetics of gas-phase reactions (though perhaps you are already familiar with these concepts).

 

[Bystander]

describe chemical reactions from a physical/physics interpretation, particularly how one describing the interactions through interactions with the nucleus and surrounding local fields involved in the reactions?

Linus Pauling, The Nature of the Chemical Bond, excepting the fact that "chemical bond" is a "flexible" term, ranging from inter-atomic attractions/repulsions between He atoms depending upon which side of the the Joule-Thomson inversion temperature one happens to be; i.e., "overlap integrals" have been around a long time.