Configuration interaction , open-shell effect

In order to calculate the spin-angular parts of matrix elements of the two-particle operator (1) with an arbitrary number of open shells, it is necessary to consider all possible distributions of shells upon which the second quantization operators are acting. In [2] they are found to be grouped into 42 different distributions, subdivided into 4 different classes. This also explains why operator (1) is written as the sum of four complex terms. The first term represents the case when all second-quantization operators act upon the same shell (distribution 1 in [2]), the second describes the situation when these operators act upon the two different shells (distributions 2-10), third and fourth are in charge of the interactions upon three and four shells respectively (distributions 11-18 and 19-42). Such expression is particularly convenient to take into account correlation effects, because it describes all possible superpositions of configurations for the case of two-electron operator. 

Thus, the main relativistic effects are (1) the radical contraction and energetic stabilization of the s and p orbitals which in turn induce the radial expansion and energetic destabilization of the outer d and f orbitals, and (2) the well-known spin-orbit splitting. These effects will be pronounced upon going from As to Sb to Bi. Associated with effect (1), it is interesting to note that the Bi atom has a tendency to form compounds in which Bi is trivalent with the 6s 6p valence configuration. For this tendency of the 6s electron pair to remain formally unoxidized in bismuth compounds (i.e. core-like nature of the 6s electrons), the term inert pair effect or nonhybridization effect has been often used for a reasonable explanation. In this context, the relatively inert 4s pair of the As atom (compared with the 5s pair of Sb) may be ascribed to the stabilization due to the d-block contraction , rather than effect (1) . On the other hand, effect (2) plays an important role in the electronic and spectroscopic properties of atoms and molecules especially in the open-shell states. It not only splits the electronic states but also mixes the states which would not mix in the absence of spin-orbit interaction. As an example, it was calculated that even the ground state ( 2 " ) of Bij is 25% contaminated by Hg. In the Pauli Hamiltonian approximation there is one more relativistic effect called the Dawin term. This will tend to counteract partially the mass-velocity effect. 

Electron-electron repulsion can have a profound effect on the electronic structure of a system. For a closed-shell system described by one Slater determinant, in which the up-spin and down-spin electrons of a given MO are restricted to have an identical spatial function, the effective one-electron Hamiltonian employed in Section 26.2 is given by the Fock operator [3]. When one Slater determinant is used to describe the electronic structure of an open-shell system, the up-spin and down-spin electrons are allowed to have different spatial functions. For a certain open-shell system (e.g. diradical), a proper description of its electronic structures even on a qualitative level requires the use of a configuration interaction (Cl) wave function [6], i.e. a linear combination of Slater determinants. In this section, we probe how electron-electron repulsion affects the concepts of orbital interaction, orbital mixing and orbital occupation by considering a dimer that is made up of two identical sites with one electron and one orbital per site (Fig. 26.3). 

A further restriction on the use of many-body perturbation techniques arises from the (quasi-) degenerate energy structure, which occurs for most open-shell atoms and molecules. In these systems, a single reference state fails to provide a good approximation for the physical states of interest. A better choice, instead, is the use of a multi-configurational reference state or model space, respectively. Such a choice, when combined with configuration interactions calculations, enables one to incorporate important correlation effects (within the model space) to all orders. The extension and application of perturbation expansions towards open-shell systems is of interest for both, the traditional order-by-order MBPT [1] as well as in the case of the CCA [17]. 

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