Electronic states formulation

Until now we have implicitly assumed that our problem is formulated in a space-fixed coordinate system. However, electronic wave functions are naturally expressed in the system bound to the molecule otherwise they generally also depend on the rotational coordinate 4>. (This is not the case for E electronic states, for which the wave functions are invariant with respect to (j> ) The eigenfunctions of the electronic Hamiltonian, v / and v , computed in the framework of the BO approximation ( adiabatic electronic wave functions) for two electronic states into which a spatially degenerate state of linear molecule splits upon bending. 

Electron Nuclear Dynamics (48) departs from a variational form where the state vector is both explicitly and implicitly time-dependent. A coherent state formulation for electron and nuclear motion is given and the relevant parameters are determined as functions of time from the Euler equations that define the stationary point of the functional. Yngve and his group have currently implemented the method for a determinantal electronic wave function and products of wave packets for the nuclei in the limit of zero width, a "classical" limit. Results are coming forth protons on methane (49), diatoms in laser fields (50), protons on water (51), and charge transfer (52) between oxygen and protons. 

An alternative to the traditional approach is to generate the electronic states as needed during the dynamics. This has been done for atomic collisions, where detailed calculations and comparisons with experimental results are possi-ble.(4-8) General treatments of the coupling of electronic and nuclear motions in molecular systems can be done in a variety of formulations. In particular, Ohrn, Deumens and collaborators have implemented a general variational treatment in... 

There are several possible ways of deriving the equations for TDDFT. The most natural way departs from density-functional perturbation theory as outlined above. Initially it is assumed that an external perturbation is applied, which oscillates at a frequency co. The linear response of the system is then computed, which will be oscillating with the same imposed frequency co. In contrast with the standard static formulation of DFPT, there will be special frequencies cov for which the solutions of the perturbation theory equations will persist even when the external field vanishes. These particular solutions for orbitals and frequencies describe excited electronic states and energies with very good accuracy. 

There is, however, an important conceptional difference between the two approaches. On the quasi-classical level, this difference simply manifests itself in the initial conditions chosen for the electronic DoF. Let us consider an electronic two-level system that is initially assumed to be in the electronic state vl/]). In the mean-field formulation, the initial conditions are action-angle variables [cf. Eq. (18)], the electronic initial distribution in (90), is given by pgj = 6 Ni — 1)6 N2). In the mapping formalism, on the other hand, the initial electronic state vl/]) is represented by the first oscillator being in its first excited state and second oscillator being in its ground state [cf. Eq. (91)]. This corresponds to the... 

Messina et al. consider a system with two electronic states g) and e). The system is partitioned into a subset of degrees of freedom that are to be controlled, labeled Z, and a background subset of degrees of freedom, labeled x the dynamics of the Z subset, which is to be controlled, is treated exactly, whereas the dynamics of the x subset is described with the time-dependent Hartree approximation. The formulation of the calculation is similar to the weak-response optimal control theory analysis of Wilson et al. described in Section IV [28-32], The solution of the time-dependent Schrodinger equation for this system can be represented in the form... 

To capture the essence of the Feshbach resonance phenomenon, we will need to understand what happens to the ground vibrational state 4>o(R) of the ground electronic state, also depicted in Figure 1.13, because of the interaction with the continuum of states excited electronic state. The physical process described above can be formulated as a two coupled channels problem where the solution irg(R) in the closed channel (the ground state) depends on the solution ire(R) in the open channel (the excited state) and vice-versa. The coupled Schrodinger equations read... 

However, the total dissociation wavefunction is useful in order to visualize the overall dissociation path in the upper electronic state as illustrated in Figure 2.3(a) for the two-dimensional model system. The variation of the center of the wavefunction with r intriguingly illustrates the substantial vibrational excitation of the product in this case. As we will demonstrate in Chapter 5, I tot closely resembles a swarm of classical trajectories launched in the vicinity of the ground-state equilibrium. Furthermore, we will prove in Chapter 4 that the total dissociation function is the Fourier transform of the evolving wavepacket in the time-dependent formulation of photodissociation. The evolving wavepacket, the swarm of classical trajectories, and the total dissociation wavefunction all lead to the same general picture of the dissociation process. 

It is clear that in detailed modeling studies, a flexible quantum chemical approach is required to accommodate the variety of electronic states which may be involved. Figure 3.23 displays free energy profiles along the ET reaction coordinate (17) for some examples of the CS and CR type. The definition of 17 and the formulation of the energy surfaces are discussed in Section 3.5.4. 

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