Coupling Strength, 𝐴𝐴 0 (a.u.) showing the energy difference between two nuclear geometries, E ‡ = E TS -E reac , for which the contribution of either term can be positive or negative (see Fig. and Fig. in the Supporting Information for the absolute energies of each term). For the critical angles which the TS barrier energy is minimized (Fig. ), the opposite trends are observed, where the DSE contributes negatively while the direct interaction term is positive. Additionally, the magnitudes of all terms are reduced since the cavity-induces TS barrier decreases (negative values/blue in Fig. ) are less in magnitude than the cavity-induced increases (positive values/red in Fig. ). The energy contributions from Ĥel (solid red curve) and Ĥph (solid green curve) terms are activated indirectly by the coupling terms and are more difficult to attribute to simple physics, except that as the absolute energy of Ĥel and Ĥph increases in a given nuclear configuration (see Fig. and Fig. in the Supporting Information for the absolute energies of the reactant and TS geometries), increasing the contribution from higher-lying electronic excited states and higher photon number states to the polaritonic ground state. In all four cases of critical angles (in Fig. and Fig. as well as their differences shown in Fig. ), the cavityinduced changes to these terms is smaller than the ther direct electron-photon interaction and DSE terms (see Fig. ).