Conical intersections topologies

Figure 6. Two-dimensional (top) and 3D (bottom) representations of a peaked (a) and sloped (b) conical intersection topology. There are two directions that lift the degeneracy the GD and the DC. The top figures have energy plotted against the DC while the bottom figures represent the energy plotted in the space of hoth the GD and DC vectors. At a peaked intersection, as shown at the bottom of (a), the probability of recrossing the conical intersection should be small whereas in the case of a sloped intersection [bottom of ( )l, this possibility should be high. [Reproduced from [84] courtesy of Elsevier Publishers.]...

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Klein S, Bearpark MJ, Smith BR, Robb MA, Olivucci M, Ber-nardi F (1998) Mixed state on the fly non-adiabatic dynamics the role of the conical intersection topology. Chem Phys Lett 292(3) 259-266... 

Halasz G, Sindelka M, Moiseyev N, Cederbaum LS, Vibok A (2012) Light-induced conical intersections topological phase, wave packet dynamics and molecular alignment. J Phys Chem A 116 2636... 

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. 

In this section, the adiabatic picture will be extended to include the non-adiabatic terais that couple the states. After this has been done, a diabatic picture will be developed that enables the basic topology of the coupled surfaces to be investigated. Of particular interest are the intersection regions, which may form what are called conical intersections. These are a multimode phenomena, that is, they do not occur in ID systems, and the name comes from their shape— in a special 2D space it has the fomi of a double cone. Finally, a model Flamiltonian will be introduced that can describe the coupled surfaces. This enables a global description of the surfaces, and gives both insight and predictive power to the fomration of conical intersections. More detailed review on conical intersections and their properties can be found in [1,14,65,176-178]. 

Conical intersections can be broadly classified in two topological types peaked and sloped [189]. These are sketched in Figure 6. The peaked case is the classical theoretical model from Jahn-Teller and other systems where the minima in the lower surface are either side of the intersection point. As indicated, the dynamics of a system through such an intersection would be expected to move fast from the upper to lower adiabatic surfaces, and not return. In contrast, the sloped form occurs when both states have minima that lie on the same side of the intersection. Here, after crossing from the upper to lower surfaces, recrossing is very likely before relaxation to the ground-state minimum can occur. 

For states of different symmetry, to first order the terms AW and W[2 are independent. When they both go to zero, there is a conical intersection. To connect this to Section III.C, take Qq to be at the conical intersection. The gradient difference vector in Eq. f75) is then a linear combination of the symmetric modes, while the non-adiabatic coupling vector inEq. (76) is a linear combination of the appropriate nonsymmetric modes. States of the same symmetry may also foiiti a conical intersection. In this case it is, however, not possible to say a priori which modes are responsible for the coupling. All totally symmetric modes may couple on- or off-diagonal, and the magnitudes of the coupling determine the topology. 

The general formula and the individual cases as presented in Eq. (97) indicate that indeed the number of conical intersections in a given snb-space and the number of possible sign flips within this sub-sub-Hilbert space are interrelated, similar to a spin J with respect to its magnetic components Mj. In other words, each decoupled sub-space is now characterized by a spin quantum number J that connects between the number of conical intersections in this system and the topological effects which characterize it. 

In Section IV, we introduced the topological matrix D [see Eq. (38)] and showed that for a sub-Hilbert space this matrix is diagonal with (-1-1) and (—1) terms a feature that was defined as quantization of the non-adiabatic coupling matrix. If the present three-state system forms a sub-Hilbert space the resulting D matrix has to be a diagonal matrix as just mentioned. From Eq. (38) it is noticed that the D matrix is calculated along contours, F, that surround conical intersections. Our task in this section is to calculate the D matrix and we do this, again, for circular contours. 

In such a case the last choice is to take the direction of the eigenvector of the only one nonzero eigenvalue of the rank one Hessian matrix of the difference between the two adiabatic potential energies [51]. In the vicinity of conical intersection, the topology of the potential energy surface can be described by the diadiabatic Hamiltonian in the form... 

To conclude this section, it could be helpful to make a connection between the pictorial discussion we have just given and the type of computation that one can carry out in quantum chemistry. The double cone topology shown in Figure 9.3 can be represented mathematically by Eqs 9.3a and 9.3b. Qx, Qx, are the branching space coordinates. This equation is valid close to the apex of the cone. (A full discussion of the analytical representation of conical intersections can be found in references 9 and 10.)... 

We now proceed to look at three examples from recent work in some depth. In the first example, we wish to illustrate that a knowledge of the VB structure or of the states involved in photophysics and photochemistry rationalize the potential surface topology in an intuitively appealing way. We then proceed to look at an example where the extended hyperline concept has interesting mechanistic implications. Finally, we shall look at an example of how conical intersections can control electron transfer problems. 

Figure 9.29. Three conical intersection surface topologies for electron transfer processes in radical cations (adapted from reference 5).

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