Coupled-cluster approach, nuclear calculations

The relativistic coupled cluster method starts from the four-component solutions of the Drrac-Fock or Dirac-Fock-Breit equations, and correlates them by the coupled-cluster approach. The Fock-space coupled-cluster method yields atomic transition energies in good agreement (usually better than 0.1 eV) with known experimental values. This is demonstrated here by the electron affinities of group-13 atoms. Properties of superheavy atoms which are not known experimentally can be predicted. Here we show that the rare gas eka-radon (element 118) will have a positive electron affinity. One-, two-, and four-components methods are described and applied to several states of CdH and its ions. Methods for calculating properties other than energy are discussed, and the electric field gradients of Cl, Br, and I, required to extract nuclear quadrupoles from experimental data, are calculated. 

One method of determining nuclear quadrupole moment Q is by measuring the quadrupole coupling constant, given by eqQ/h, where e is the charge of the electron and q the electric field gradient due to the electrons at the atomic nucleus. The extraction of Q depends on an accurately calculated q. As a test of our finite-field relativistic coupled cluster approach, preliminary results for Cl, Br, and I are presented. 

Computationally, the present approach rests on the QVC coupling scheme in conjunction with coupled-cluster electronic structure calculations for the vibronic Hamiltonian, and on the MCDTH wave packet propagation method for the nuclear dynamics. In combination, these are powerful tools for studying such systems with 10-20 nuclear degrees of freedom. (This holds especially in view of so-called multilayer MCTDH implementations which further enhance the computational efficiency [130,131].) If the LVC or QVC schemes are not applicable, related variants of constructing diabatic electronic states are available [132,133], which may extend the realm of application from the present spectroscopic and photophysical also to photochemical problems. Their feasibility and further applications remain to be investigated in future work. 

A. Ligabue, S. P. A. Sauer, P. Lazzeretti, Gauge invariant calculations of nuclear magnetic shielding constants using the continuous transformation of the origin of the current density approach. 11. Density-functional and coupled cluster theory, J. Chem. Phys. 126 (2007) 154111. 

---