Electron Wave Functions

It is one of the postulates of quantum mechanics that for every observable quantity o there is a corresponding operator O such that an average or expectation value of the observable may be obtained by evaluating the expression 

In equation (A.S), P is the wave function which describes the distribution of particles in the system. It may be the exact wave function [the solution to equation (A.1)] or a reasonable approximate wave function. For most molecules, the ground electronic state wave function is real, and in writing the expectation value in the form of equation (A.S), we have made this simplifying (though not necessary) assumption. The electronic energy is an observable of the system, and the corresponding operator is the Hamiltonian operator. Therefore, one may obtain an estimate for the energy even if one does not know the exact wave function but only an approximate one, T , that is. 

The minimum requirements for a many-electron wave function, namely, antisymmetry with respect to interchange of electrons and indistinguishability of electrons, are satisfied by an antisymmetrized sum of products of one-electron wave functions (orbitals), (1), 

The term in square brackets is a Hartree product The numbers in round brackets refer to particular electrons, or more specifically, to the x, y, z, and spin coordinates of those 

Equation (A. 10) may be expressed in determinantal fonn and is often referred to as a determinantal wave function  

Equation (A.10) (or (A.12)) has an inherent restriction built into it since other wave functions of the same form are possible if one could select any Ne orbitals from an infinite number of them rather than the Ne used in (A.10). One could thus generate an infinite number of determinantal wave functions of the form (A.10), and without approximation, the exact wave function E( 1,2. Ne) could be expressed as a linear combination of them  

---

Small metal clusters are also of interest because of their importance in catalysis. Despite the fact that small clusters should consist of mostly surface atoms, measurement of the photon ionization threshold for Hg clusters suggest that a transition from van der Waals to metallic properties occurs in the range of 20-70 atoms per cluster [88] and near-bulk magnetic properties are expected for Ni, Pd, and Pt clusters of only 13 atoms [89] Theoretical calculations on Sin and other semiconductors predict that the stmcture reflects the bulk lattice for 1000 atoms but the bulk electronic wave functions are not obtained [90]. Bartell and co-workers [91] study beams of molecular clusters with electron dirfraction and molecular dynamics simulations and find new phases not observed in the bulk. Bulk models appear to be valid for their clusters of several thousand atoms (see Section IX-3). 

Helgaker T, Gauss J, J0rgensen P and Olsen J 1997 The prediction of molecular equilibrium structures by the standard electronic wave functions J. Chem. Phys. 106 6430-40... 

This makes it desirable to define other representations in addition to the electronically adiabatic one [Eqs. (9)-(12)], in which the adiabatic electronic wave function basis set used in the Bom-Huang expansion (12) is replaced by another basis set of functions of the electronic coordinates. Such a different electronic basis set can be chosen so as to minimize the above mentioned gradient term. This term can initially be neglected in the solution of the / -electionic-state nuclear motion Schrodinger equation and reintroduced later using perturbative or other methods, if desired. This new basis set of electronic wave functions can also be made to depend parametrically, like their adiabatic counterparts, on the internal nuclear coordinates q that were defined after Eq. (8). This new electronic basis set is henceforth refened to as diabatic and, as is obvious, leads to an electronically diabatic representation that is not unique unlike the adiabatic one, which is unique by definition. 

U(qJ is referred to as an adiabatic-to-diabatic transformation (ADT) matrix. Its mathematical sbucture is discussed in detail in Section in.C. If the electronic wave functions in the adiabatic and diabatic representations are chosen to be real, as is normally the case, U(q ) is orthogonal and therefore has n n — l)/2 independent elements (or degrees of freedom). This transformation mabix U(qO can be chosen so as to yield a diabatic electronic basis set with desired properties, which can then be used to derive the diabatic nuclear motion Schrodinger equation. By using Eqs. (27) and (28) and the orthonormality of the diabatic and adiabatic electronic basis sets, we can relate the adiabatic and diabatic nuclear wave functions through the same n-dimensional unitary transformation matrix U(qx) according to... 

In the -electronic-state adiabatic representation involving real electronic wave functions, the skew-symmetiic first-derivative coupling vector mahix... 

In the two-electronic-state case (with real electronic wave functions as before), Eqs. (12) and (27) become... 

As discussed in Section II.A, the adiabatic electronic wave functions and depend on the nuclear coordinates Rx only through the subset... 

In the two-electronic-state Bom-Huang expansion, the fulTHilbert space of adiabatic electoonic states is approximated by the lowest two states and furnishes for the corresponding electronic wave functions the approximate closure relation... 

By using this equation and the fact that for real electronic wave functions the diagonal elements of W (q ) vanish, it can be shown that... 

Although the leading term of the electronic wave function of the system is thus changed, the total wave function has not and the calculated trajectory and properties exhibit no discontinuous behavior. 

Some details of END using a multiconfigurational electronic wave function with a complete active space (CASMC) have been introduced in terms of an orthonormal basis and for a fixed nuclear framework [25], and were recently [26] discussed in some detail for a nonoithogonal basis with electron translation factors. 

In this chapter, we look at the techniques known as direct, or on-the-fly, molecular dynamics and their application to non-adiabatic processes in photochemistry. In contrast to standard techniques that require a predefined potential energy surface (PES) over which the nuclei move, the PES is provided here by explicit evaluation of the electronic wave function for the states of interest. This makes the method very general and powerful, particularly for the study of polyatomic systems where the calculation of a multidimensional potential function is an impossible task. For a recent review of standard non-adiabatic dynamics methods using analytical PES functions see [1]. 

Direct dynamics attempts to break this bottleneck in the study of MD, retaining the accuracy of the full electronic PES without the need for an analytic fit of data. The first studies in this field used semiclassical methods with semiempirical [66,67] or simple Hartree-Fock [68] wave functions to heat the electrons. These first studies used what is called BO dynamics, evaluating the PES at each step from the elech onic wave function obtained by solution of the electronic structure problem. An alternative, the Ehrenfest dynamics method, is to propagate the electronic wave function at the same time as the nuclei. Although early direct dynamics studies using this method [69-71] restricted themselves to adiabatic problems, the method can incorporate non-adiabatic effects directly in the electionic wave function. 

In a diabatic representation, the electronic wave functions are no longer eigenfunctions of the electronic Hamiltonian. The aim is instead that the functions are so chosen that the (nonlocal) non-adiabatic coupling operator matrix, A in Eq. (52), vanishes, and the couplings are represented by (local) potential operators. The nuclear Schrddinger equation is then written... 

Both the BO dynamics and Gaussian wavepacket methods described above in Section n separate the nuclear and electronic motion at the outset, and use the concept of potential energy surfaces. In what is generally known as the Ehrenfest dynamics method, the picture is still of semiclassical nuclei and quantum mechanical electrons, but in a fundamentally different approach the electronic wave function is propagated at the same time as the pseudoparticles. These are driven by standard classical equations of motion, with the force provided by an instantaneous potential energy function... 

If more than one electronic state is involved, then the electronic wave function is free to contain components from all states. For example, for non-adiabatic systems the elecbonic wave function can be expanded in the adiabatic basis set at the nuclear geometry R t)... 

To use direct dynamics for the study of non-adiabatic systems it is necessary to be able to efficiently and accurately calculate electronic wave functions for excited states. In recent years, density functional theory (DFT) has been gaining ground over traditional Hartree-Fock based SCF calculations for the treatment of the ground state of large molecules. Recent advances mean that so-called time-dependent DFT methods are now also being applied to excited states. Even so, at present, the best general methods for the treatment of the photochemistry of polyatomic organic molecules are MCSCF methods, of which the CASSCF method is particularly powerful. 

Jones et al. [144,214] used direct dynamics with semiempirical electronic wave functions to study electron transfer in cyclic polyene radical cations. Semiempirical methods have the advantage that they are cheap, and so a number of trajectories can be run for up to 50 atoms. Accuracy is of course sacrificed in comparison to CASSCF techniques, but for many organic molecules semiempirical methods are known to perform adequately. 

Within the Bom-Oppenheimer (BO) approximation, A) and B) may be written as the product of an electronic wave function, M)gj and a nuclear wave function M) . 

If the reaction is elementary, there is only a single transition state between A and B. At this point the derivative of the total electronic wave function with respect to the reaction coordinate Qa b vanishes ... 

In the transition state region, the spin-pairing change mnst take place. At this nuclear configuration, the electronic wave function may be written as... 

By using the determinant fomi of the electronic wave functions, it is readily shown that a phase-inverting reaction is one in which an even number of election pairs are exchanged, while in a phase-preserving reaction, an odd number of electron pairs are exchanged. This holds for Htickel-type reactions, and is demonstrated in Appendix A. For a definition of Hilckel and Mbbius-type reactions, see Section III. 

---