FORMATION OF HYDRATED ELECTRONS IN WATER DURING RADIOLYSIS OR AT SUPERCRITICAL SТАТЕ

The paper briefly describes the experimental and theoretical results of studies of water radiolysis under the action of accelerated electrons, or water in the supercritical (SC) state. Two models of the formation of a hydrated electron (HE) in water during radiolysis or in the SC state are proposed. One of them is a hydrogen-like model. It describes HE in water as a result of the formation of a hydrogen-like atom in a dielectric medium. The second model is a cavity model. It describes HE as a vapor sphere in water, which is characterized by capillary oscillations. It is shown that the hydrogen-like model does not describe HE, since the binding energy of HE is significantly less than the experimental one. The cavity model seems more realistic, since the energy of oscillations of the vapor sphere corresponds to the experimental value of the binding energy of HE.