Electronic structure Born-Oppenheimer separation

A second simplihcation results from introducing the Born-Oppenheimer separation of electronic and nuclear motions for convenience, the latter is most often considered to be classical. Each excited electronic state of the molecule can then be considered as a distinct molecular species, and the laser-excited system can be viewed as a mixture of them. The local structure of such a system is generally described in terms of atom-atom distribution functions t) [22, 24, 25]. These functions are proportional to the probability of Ending the nuclei p and v at the distance r at time t. Building this information into Eq. (4) and considering the isotropy of a liquid system simplifies the theory considerably. 

Computational methods typically employ the Born-Oppenheimer approximation in most electronic structure programs to separate the nuclear and electronic parts of the Schrodinger equation that is still hard enough to solve approximately. There would be no potential energy (hyper)surface (PES) without the Born-Oppenheimer approximation -how difficult mechanistic organic chemistry would be without it ... 

Many of the ideas that are essential to understanding polyatomic electronic spectra have already been developed in the three preceding chapters. As in diatomics, the Born-Oppenheimer separation between electronic and nuclear motions is a useful organizing principle for treating electronic transitions in polyatomics. Vibrational band intensities in polyatomic electronic spectra are frequently (but not always) governed by Franck-Condon factors in the vibrational modes. The rotational fine structure in gas-phase electronic transitions parallels that in polyatomic vibration-rotation spectra (Section 6.6), except that the rotational selection rules in symmetric and asymmetric tops now depend on the relative orientations of the electronic transition moment and the principal axes. Analyses of rotational contours in polyatomic band spectra thus provide valuable clues about the symmetry and assignment of the electronic states involved. 

Within the Born-Oppenheimer approximation, we still need to know that the nuclear position parameters really correspond to the distances and angles of a classical molecular framework. Our choice of the Coulomb gauge ensures this—the nuclear positions only appear in the electron-nucleus interaction terms, and the derivation of this potential from relativistic field theory shows us that it is indeed the quantities of normal 3-space that appear here. Thus, any potential surface that we might calculate on the basis of the Born-Oppenheimer-separated electronic molecular Dirac equation is indeed spanned by the variations of molecular structural parameters in the usual meaning. 

Separation of the movement of the nuclei and electrons. This is possible because the electrons move much more rapidly (smaller mass) than the nuclei. The position of the nuclei is fixed for the calculation of the electronic Schrodinger equation (in MO calculations the nuclear positions are then parameters, not quantum chemical variables). Born-Oppenheimer surfaces are energy vs. nuclear structure plots which are (n + 1)-dimensional, where n is 3N- 6 with N atoms (see potential energy surface). 

An alternative strategy is to synthesize a molecular wave function, on chemical intuition, and progressively modify this function until it solves the molecular wave equation. However, chemical intuition fails to generate molecular wave functions of the required spherical symmetry, as molecules are assumed to have non-spherical three-dimensional structures. The impasse is broken by invoking the Born-Oppenheimer assumption that separates the motion of electrons and nuclei. At this point the strategy ceases to be ab initio and reduces to semi-empirical quantum-mechanical simulation. The assumed three-dimensional nuclear framework is no longer quantum-mechanically defined. The advantage of this model over molecular mechanics is that the electron distribution is defined quantum-mechanically. It has been used to simulate the H2 molecule. 

So far, this discussion of selection rules has considered only the electronic component of the transition. For molecular species, vibrational and rotational structure is possible in the spectrum, although for complex molecules, especially in condensed phases where collisional line broadening is important, the rotational lines, and sometimes the vibrational bands, may be too close to be resolved. Where the structure exists, however, certain transitions may be allowed or forbidden by vibrational or rotational selection rules. Such rules once again use the Born-Oppenheimer approximation, and assume that the wavefunctions for the individual modes may be separated. Quite apart from the symmetry-related selection rules, there is one further very important factor that determines the intensity of individual vibrational bands in electronic transitions, and that is the geometries of the two electronic states concerned. Relative intensities of different vibrational components of an electronic transition are of importance in connection with both absorption and emission processes. The populations of the vibrational levels obviously affect the relative intensities. In addition, electronic transitions between given vibrational levels in upper and lower states have a specific probability, determined in part... 

The electronic structure methods are based primarily on two basic approximations (1) Born-Oppenheimer approximation that separates the nuclear motion from the electronic motion, and (2) Independent Particle approximation that allows one to describe the total electronic wavefunction in the form of one electron wavefunc-tions i.e. a Slater determinant [26], Together with electron spin, this is known as the Hartree-Fock (HF) approximation. The HF method can be of three types restricted Hartree-Fock (RHF), unrestricted Hartree-Fock (UHF) and restricted open Hartree-Fock (ROHF). In the RHF method, which is used for the singlet spin system, the same orbital spatial function is used for both electronic spins (a and (3). In the UHF method, electrons with a and (3 spins have different orbital spatial functions. However, this kind of wavefunction treatment yields an error known as spin contamination. In the case of ROHF method, for an open shell system paired electron spins have the same orbital spatial function. One of the shortcomings of the HF method is neglect of explicit electron correlation. Electron correlation is mainly caused by the instantaneous interaction between electrons which is not treated in an explicit way in the HF method. Therefore, several physical phenomena can not be explained using the HF method, for example, the dissociation of molecules. The deficiency of the HF method (RHF) at the dissociation limit of molecules can be partly overcome in the UHF method. However, for a satisfactory result, a method with electron correlation is necessary. 

The geometrical and electronic structure for molecular systems in general will depend on the balance between the different terms in the Hamiltonian i.e. electron-nucleus, electron-electron and nucleus-nucleus interaction including the valence as well as the core electrons of the constituent atoms. The full Hamiltonian for the molecular system is normally separated into a Hamiltonian Hn for the nuclei and another one Hgi for the electrons with fixed positions for the nuclei according to Born Oppenheimer approximation [31]. 

For example, the Born-Oppenheimer approximation is ubiquitous. The separation of the electronic and nuclear motion is most often an excellent approximation. However, it is also fundamental to the concept of molecular structure. The model of fixed nuclei surrounded by electrons which accommodate almost instantly any change in the nuclear positions is basic to qualitative and quantitative discussions of molecular structure. 

Section 2 of this chapter notes will be devoted to the framework for separation of the ionic and electronic dynamics through the Born-Oppenheimer approximation. Atomic motion, with forces on the ions at each timestep evaluated through an electronic structure calculation, can then be propagated by Molecular Dynamics simulations, as proposed by first-principle Molecular Dynamics. This allows for a description of the electronic reorganisation following the atomic motion, e.g. bond rearrangements in chemical reactions. 

Often the FPMD schemes are referred to as Born-Oppenheimer (BO) molecular dynamics (BOMD) simulations, since the most often used electronic structure calculation methods employ the separation of time-scales between the nuclear and electronic motions, introduced by Born and Oppenheimer (see discussion at the beginning of section 1.3.1, The Many-Body Problem ). Such BO FPMD simulations have been implemented in several ways [330-334]. 

The structure of approximate reasoning is not simple. Consider the Born-Oppenheim approximation (separability of electronic and nuclear motions due to extreme mass difference), which in application produces "fixed nuclei" Hamiltonians for individual molecules. In assuming a nuclear skeleton, the idealization neatly corresponds to classical conceptions of a molecule containing localized bonds and definite structure. All early quantum calculations, and the vast majority to date, invoke the approximation. In 1978, following decades of quiet assumption, Cambridge chemist R. G. Woolley asserted ... 

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