Conical intersections phase

Figure B3.4.16. A generic example of crossing 2D potential surfaces. Note that, upon rotating around the conic intersection point, the phase of the wavefunction need not return to its original value.

The stoi7 begins with studies of the molecular Jahn-Teller effect in the late 1950s [1-3]. The Jahn-Teller theorems themselves [4,5] are 20 years older and static Jahn-Teller distortions of elecbonically degenerate species were well known and understood. Geomebic phase is, however, a dynamic phenomenon, associated with nuclear motions in the vicinity of a so-called conical intersection between potential energy surfaces. 

Molecular aspects of geometric phase are associated with conical intersections between electronic energy surfaces, W(Q), where Q denotes the set of say k vibrational coordinates. In the simplest two-state case, the W Q) are eigen-surfaces of the nuclear coordinate dependent Hermitian electronic Hamiltonian... 

Phase factors of this type are employed, for example, by the Baer group [25,26]. While Eq. (34) is strictly applicable only in the immediate vicinity of the conical intersection, the continuity of the non-adiabatic coupling, discussed in Section HI, suggests that the integrated value of (x Vq x+) is independent of the size or shape of the encircling loop, provided that no other conical intersection is encountered. The mathematical assumption is that there exists some phase function, vl/(2), such that... 

As mentioned in the introduction, the simplest way of approximately accounting for the geomehic or topological effects of a conical intersection incorporates a phase factor in the nuclear wave function. In this section, we shall consider some specific situations where this approach is used and furthermore give the vector potential that can be derived from the phase factor. 

Single surface calculations with proper phase treatment in the adiabatic representation with shifted conical intersection has been performed in polai coordinates. For this calculation, the initial adiabatic wave function tad(9, 4 > o) is obtained by mapping t, to) ittlo polai space using the relations,... 

In Figure 1, we see that there are relative shifts of the peak of the rotational distribution toward the left from f = 12 to / = 8 in the presence of the geometiic phase. Thus, for the D + Ha (v = 1, DH (v, f) - - H reaction with the same total energy 1.8 eV, we find qualitatively the same effect as found quantum mechanically. Kuppermann and Wu [46] showed that the peak of the rotational state distribution moves toward the left in the presence of a geometric phase for the process D + H2 (v = 1, J = 1) DH (v = 1,/)- -H. It is important to note the effect of the position of the conical intersection (0o) on the rotational distribution for the D + H2 reaction. Although the absolute position of the peak (from / = 10 to / = 8) obtained from the quantum mechanical calculation is different from our results, it is worthwhile to see that the peak... 

The relative shift of the peak position of the rotational distiibution in the presence of a vector potential thus confirms the effect of the geometric phase for the D + H2 system displaying conical intersections. The most important aspect of our calculation is that we can also see this effect by using classical mechanics and, with respect to the quantum mechanical calculation, the computer time is almost negligible in our calculation. This observation is important for heavier systems, where the quantum calculations ai e even more troublesome and where the use of classical mechanics is also more justified. 

In this chapter, we discussed the significance of the GP effect in chemical reactions, that is, the influence of the upper electronic state(s) on the reactive and nonreactive transition probabilities of the ground adiabatic state. In order to include this effect, the ordinary BO equations are extended either by using a HLH phase or by deriving them from first principles. Considering the HLH phase due to the presence of a conical intersection between the ground and the first excited state, the general fomi of the vector potential, hence the effective... 

The ordinary BO approximate equations failed to predict the proper symmetry allowed transitions in the quasi-JT model whereas the extended BO equation either by including a vector potential in the system Hamiltonian or by multiplying a phase factor onto the basis set can reproduce the so-called exact results obtained by the two-surface diabatic calculation. Thus, the calculated hansition probabilities in the quasi-JT model using the extended BO equations clearly demonshate the GP effect. The multiplication of a phase factor with the adiabatic nuclear wave function is an approximate treatment when the position of the conical intersection does not coincide with the origin of the coordinate axis, as shown by the results of [60]. Moreover, even if the total energy of the system is far below the conical intersection point, transition probabilities in the JT model clearly indicate the importance of the extended BO equation and its necessity. 

CONICAL INTERSECTIONS IN MOLECULAR PHOTOCHEMISTRY THE PHASE-CHANGE APPROACH... 

We can now proceed to discuss the phase-change rule and its use to locate conical intersections. 

Figure 4. The H3 and H4 loops. Ac the center, the conical intersections are shown schematically an equilateral triangle for H3 and a perfect tetrahedron for Kt, <2p> Jid Q, are the phase-preserving and phase-inverting coordinates, respectively.

In this section, the systematic search for conical intersections based on the Longuet-Higgins phase-change rule is described. For conciseness sake, we limit the present discussion to Hiickel-type systems only, unless specifically noted otherwise. The first step in the antilysis is the determination of the LH loops containing a conical intersection for the reaction of interest. 

We have seen (Section I) that there are two types of loops that are phase inverting upon completing a round hip an i one and an ip one. A schematic representation of these loops is shown in Figure 10. The other two options, p and i p loops do not contain a conical intersection. Let us assume that A is the reactant, B the desired product, and C the third anchor. In an ip loop, any one of the three reaction may be the phase-inverting one, including the B C one. Thus, the A B reaction may be phase preserving, and still B may be attainable by a photochemical reaction. This is in apparent contradiction with predictions based on the Woodward-Hoffmann rules (see Section Vni). The different options are summarized in Figure 11. 

Figure 10. A cartoon showing the phase change in loops containing a conical intersection.

The two coordinates that define the plane in which the loop located were discussed in Section n. In loops that encircle a conical intersection, there is always at least one phase-inverting reaction—we can choose its coordinate as the phase-inverting one. Let us assume that this is the reaction connecting A and... 

Figure 11. Three typical loops for the case where A is the reactant and B—the desired product. Loops in which a conical intersection may be found are (a) and (c). A loop that does not encircle a conical intersecdon is (h). In loop (a) the A B reacdon is phase inverting, and in loops (b) and c) it is phase preserving.

We illustrate the method for the relatively complex photochemistry of 1,4-cyclohexadiene (CHDN), a molecule that has been extensively studied [60-64]. There are four it electrons in this system. They may be paired in three different ways, leading to the anchors shown in Figure 17. The loop is phase inverting (type i ), as every reaction is phase inverting), and therefore contains a conical intersection Since the products are highly strained, the energy of this conical intersection is expected to be high. Indeed, neither of the two expected products was observed experimentally so far. 

The next simplest loop would contain at least one reaction in which three electron pairs are re-paired. Inspection of the possible combinations of two four-electron reactions and one six-electron reaction starting with CHDN reveals that they all lead to phase preseiwing i p loops that do not contain a conical intersection. It is therefore necessary to examine loops in which one leg results in a two electron-pair exchange, and the other two legs involve three elechon-pair exchanges fip loops). As will be discussed in Section VI, all reported products (except the helicopter-type elimination of H2) can be understood on the basis of four-electron loops. We therefore proceed to discuss the unique helicopter... 

The system provides an opportunity to test our method for finding the conical intersection and the stabilized ground-state structures that are formed by the distortion. Recall that we focus on the distinction between spin-paired structures, rather than true minima. A natural choice for anchors are the two C2v stmctures having A2 and B, symmetry shown in Figures 21 and 22 In principle, each set can serve as the anchors. The reaction converting one type-I structirre to another is phase inverting, since it transforms one allyl structure to another (Fig. 12). 

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