Perturbation and Re-equilibration
The disturbance of an equilibrium followed by its relaxation to a new equilibrium state.
Unit
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In depth
Deliberately perturbing an equilibrium with a sudden temperature or pressure jump and watching the relaxation is a powerful way to measure the rate constants of very fast reactions. The relaxation time is related to the sum of the forward and reverse rate constants.
Examples in the real world
Temperature-jump experiments measuring the sub-microsecond recombination of H⁺ and OH⁻ in water.