Physicists discover a new rule for orbital formation in chemical reactions

Electron orbitals show where and how electrons move around atomic nuclei and molecules. In modern chemistry and physics, they have proven to be a useful model for quantum mechanical description and prediction of chemical reactions. Only if the orbitals match in space and energy can they be combined — this is what happens when two substances react with each other chemically. In addition, there is another condition that must be met, as researchers have now discovered: The course of chemical reactions appears to be also dependent on the orbital distribution in momentum space.