Analytical gradient evaluation

Analytical Gradient Evaluation in Coupled-Cluster Theory. 

Molecular geometries may be calculated by means of quantum-chemical semi-empirical valence electron theories, such as Dewar s MINDO/3 , MNDO " or AMl procedures, or by classical molecular force-field methods, such as Allinger s MM2 procedure. Alternatively, inirio Hartree-Fock SCF MO methods allow, by virtue of analytical gradient evaluations , the determination of molecular geometries independent of experimentally adjusted integral values. 

R. A. DiStasio, Jr. R. P. Steele, Y. M. Rhee, Y. Shao, and M. Head-Gordon, J. Comput. Chem., 28, 839-859 (2007). An Improved Algorithm for Analytical Gradient Evaluation in Resolution-of-the-Identity Second-Order Moller-Plesset Perturbation Theory Application to Alanine Tetrapeptide Conformational Analysis. 

The gradient of the PES (force) can in principle be calculated by finite difference methods. This is, however, extremely inefficient, requiring many evaluations of the wave function. Gradient methods in quantum chemistiy are fortunately now very advanced, and analytic gradients are available for a wide variety of ab initio methods [123-127]. Note that if the wave function depends on a set of parameters X], for example, the expansion coefficients of the basis functions used to build the orbitals in molecular orbital (MO) theory. 

Importantly for direct dynamics calculations, analytic gradients for MCSCF methods [124-126] are available in many standard quantum chemistiy packages. This is a big advantage as numerical gradients require many evaluations of the wave function. The evaluation of the non-Hellmann-Feynman forces is the major effort, and requires the solution of what are termed the coupled-perturbed MCSCF (CP-MCSCF) equations. The large memory requirements of these equations can be bypassed if a direct method is used [233]. Modem computer architectures and codes then make the evaluation of first and second derivatives relatively straightforward in this theoretical framework. 

A vibrations calculation is the first step of a vibrational analysis. It involves the time consuming step of evaluating the Hessian matrix (the second derivatives of the energy with respect to atomic Cartesian coordinates) and diagonalizing it to determine normal modes and harmonic frequencies. For the SCFmethods the Hessian matrix is evaluated by finite difference of analytic gradients, so the time required quickly grows with system size. 

As regards SCF and SCF-MI calculations, the GAMESS-US program was employed, in which the SCF-MI algorithm including evaluation of analytic gradient, geometry optimisation and force constant matrices computation is available [18,41,42]. 

Lengsfield III, B.H., Saxe, P., and Yarkony, D.R. (1984). On the evaluation of nonadiabatic coupling matrix elements using SA-MCSCF/CI wavefunctions and analytic gradient methods. I, J. Chem. Phys. 81, 4549-4553. 

Tel. 904-392-1597, fax. 904-392-8722, e-mail aces2 qtp.ufl.edu Ab initio molecular orbital code specializing in the evaluation of the correlation energy using many-body perturbation theory and coupled-cluster theory. Analytic gradients of the energy available at MBPT(2), MBPT(3), MBPT(4), and CC levels for restricted and unrestricted Hartree-Fock reference functions. MBPT(2) and CC gradients. Also available for ROHE reference functions. UNIX workstations. 

In general, analytic gradient calculations scale only weakly with the number of degrees of freedom and typically require roughly 1-3 times the CPU time as the energy calculation itself. Gradients for SCF and correlated methods may be evaluated from the formula... 

For MBPT and CC methods, evaluation of the reduced density requires determining a response vector (A) as well as T. This defines a response density p = e Oo)(o (l + A)e. In addition, we want to allow the molecular orbitals to relax. The latter consideration adds another term, p", to the one-particle density. This relaxed density, p = p -I- p", is the critical quantity in CC and MBPT analytical gradient (and property) methods. " For just the one-particle part, we have p(l) = p (l) -I- p" = D(l) which will show up again when we discuss properties. 

Evaluate the gradient to provide analytic first derivatives dE/dq from which d Eldq dq can be obtained by a displacement in bq. Again, symmetry can be exploited to reduce the number of gradient evaluations. Evaluate the second derivative matrix analytically. 

To discuss the form and cost of analytic gradient and Hessian evaluations, we consider the simple case of Hartree-Fock (HF) calculations. In nearly all chemical applications of HF theory, the molecular orbitals (MOs) are represented by a linear combination of atomic orbitals (LCAO). In the context of most electronic structure methods, the LCAO approximation employs a more convenient set of basis functions such as contracted Gaussians, rather than using actual atomic orbitals. Taken together, the collection of basis functions used to represent the atomic orbitals comprises a basis set. 

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