Electron-density distribution methods

Electrophilic Aromatic Substitution. The Tt-excessive character of the pyrrole ring makes the indole ring susceptible to electrophilic attack. The reactivity is greater at the 3-position than at the 2-position. This reactivity pattern is suggested both by electron density distributions calculated by molecular orbital methods and by the relative energies of the intermediates for electrophilic substitution, as represented by the protonated stmctures (7a) and (7b). Stmcture (7b) is more favorable than (7a) because it retains the ben2enoid character of the carbocycHc ring (12). 

Takata, M. and Sakata, M. (1996) The influence of completeness of the data set on the charge density obtained with the maximum-entropy method. A re-examination of the electron-density distribution in Si, Acta Cryst., A52, 287-290. 

Iversen, B.B., Larsen, F.K., Souhassou, M. and Takata, M. (1995) Experimental evidence forthe existence of non-nuclear maxima in the electron density distribution of metallic beryllium. A comparative study ofthe maximum entropy method and the multipole method, Acta Cryst., B51, 580-591. 

As mentioned above and discussed in Chapter 2, atomic charges were often obtained in the past from dipole moments of diatomic molecules, assuming that the measured dipole moment equal to the bond length times the atomic charge. This method assumes that the molecular electron density is composed of spherically symmetric electron density distributions, each centered on its own nucleus. That is, the dipole moment is assumed to be due only to the charge transfer moment Mct. and the atomic dipoles Malom are ignored. 

This chapter is based on the VSEPR and LCP models described in Chapters 4 and 5 and on the analysis of electron density distributions by the AIM theory discussed in Chapters 6 and 7. As we have seen, AIM gives us a method for obtaining the properties of atoms in molecules. Throughout the history of chemistry, as we have discussed in earlier chapters, most attention has been focused on the bonds rather than on the atoms in a molecule. In this chapter we will see how we can relate the properties of bonds, such as length and strength, to the quantities we can obtain from AIM. 

Another common method of representing the electron density distribution is as a contour map, just as we can use a topographic contour map to represent the relief of a part of the earth s surface. Figure 7a shows a contour map of the electron density of the SCI2 molecule in the Oh (xy) plane. The lines in which the interatomic surfaces, that are discussed later, cut this plane are also shown. Figure 7b shows a corresponding map for the H20 molecule. 

In contrast, the NBO and NRT methods make no use of molecular geometry information (experimental or theoretical), but instead provide optimal descriptions of orbital composition or electron-density distributions based directly on the first-order density operator. For this reason the NBO/NRT indices have predictive utility for a broad range of chemical phenomena, without bias toward geometry or other particular empirical properties. 

Accurate treatment of electron density distribution is required to determine the electrostatic properties of molecules. Thus, appropriate methods for obtaining atomic charges are of particular importance. Commercial modeling software packages offer the pos-... 

The determination of the ground state energy and the ground state electron density distribution of a many-electron system in a fixed external potential is a problem of major importance in chemistry and physics. For a given Hamiltonian and for specified boundary conditions, it is possible in principle to obtain directly numerical solutions of the Schrodinger equation. Even with current generations of computers, this is not feasible in practice for systems of large total number of electrons. Of course, a variety of alternative methods, such as self-consistent mean field theories, also exist. However, these are approximate. 

The maximum entropy method was first introduced into crystallography by Collins (1982), who, based on Eq. (5.47), expressed the information entropy of the electron density distribution as a sum over M grid points in the unit cell, using... 

At the conclusion of a geometric optimization calculation, we have the equilibrium positions of all the atomic nuclei, as well as the overall electron density distributed in space (x, y, z). Many important properties, especially for an isolated single molecule at absolute zero temperature, can be obtained by solving the quantum mechanical or the molecular mechanical equations. Only the former method can produce electronic properties, such as electron distributions and dipole moments, but both methods can produce structural and energy properties. 

Aromatic substitution reactions are often complicated and multistep processes. A correlation, however, in many cases can be found between the charged attacking species and the electron density distribution in the molecule attacked during electrophilic and nucleoph c substitution. No such correlation is expected in radical substitution where the attacking particles are neutral, rather a correlation between the reactivities of separate bonds and a free valency index of the bond order. This allows the prediction of the most reactive bonds. Such an approach has been used by researchers who applied quantum calculations to estimate the reactivities of the isomeric thienothiophenes and to compare them with thiophene or naphthalene. " Until recently quantum methods for studying reactivities of aromatics and heteroaromatics were developed mainly in the r-electron approximation (see, for example, Streitwieser and Zahradnik ). The M orbitals of a sulfur atom were shown not to contribute substantially to calculations of dipole moments, polarographic reduction potentials, spin-density distribution, ... 

An X-ray atomic orbital (XAO) [77] method has also been adopted to refine electronic states directly. The method is applicable mainly to analyse the electron-density distribution in ionic solids of transition or rare earth metals, given that it is based on an atomic orbital assumption, neglecting molecular orbitals. The expansion coefficients of each atomic orbital are calculated with a perturbation theory and the coefficients of each orbital are refined to fit the observed structure factors keeping the orthonormal relationships among them. This model is somewhat similar to the valence orbital model (VOM), earlier introduced by Figgis et al. [78] to study transition metal complexes, within the Ligand field theory approach. The VOM could be applied in such complexes, within the assumption that the metal and the... 

Part II deals, in six chapters, with the principles underlying the progressive stages in the elucidation of internal structure. Chapters VI and VII deal with the principles of structure determination by trial Chapter VIII with the use of physical properties (such as habit, cleavage, and optical, magnetic, pyro- and piezo-electric properties) as auxiliary evidence in structure determination. In Chapter IX are to be found several examples of the derivation of complete structures. Chapter X gives an introductory account of the use of direct and semi-direct methods based on the calculation of electron density distributions and vector distributions from X-ray diffraction data. 

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