Effects of non-equilibrium solvation dynamics on barrierless electronic relaxation in solution

The effects of non-equilibrium solvation dynamics on zero-barrier photoisomerization reactions are studied theoretically. A theory based on general considerations is presented. A two-state model for the time dependence of the sink function is introduced and solved analytically for the survival probability of the excited state. Several interesting non-equilibrium solvation-induced effects which may be experimentally observable are predicted