Electronic structure relativistic effects

Although much of quantum chemistry is insensitive to details of the nuclear structure, relativistic effects are generated in regions near the nucleus where, classically, electrons move fastest. The behaviour as r —0 depends on what model we choose to represent the atomic nucleus. We therefore start with some generalities. 

This chapter intends to remind the reader briefly of some important aspects of the shell structure, relativistic effects, and electron correlation effects for lanthanide and actinide atoms and molecules, mainly using the example of Ce and Th. It then turns to a discussion of the electronic structure of cerium-bis( 7 -cyclooctatetraene), cerocene, which fascinated this author for more than two decades, as well as a related cerium(III)-based molecular Kondo system, i.e., bis(r7 -pentalene)cerium. These systems feature many problems of an accurate relativistic correlated description of their electronic structure and moreover leave plenty of room for alternative interpretations of their electronic ground state as well as the involvement of 4f orbitals in chemical bonding. 

Second, using the fully relativistic version of the TB-LMTO-CPA method within the atomic sphere approximation (ASA) we have calculated the total energies for random alloys AiBi i at five concentrations, x — 0,0.25,0.5,0.75 and 1, and using the CW method modified for disordered alloys we have determined five interaction parameters Eq, D,V,T, and Q as before (superscript RA). Finally, the electronic structure of random alloys calculated by the TB-LMTO-CPA method served as an input of the GPM from which the pair interactions v(c) (superscript GPM) were determined. In order to eliminate the charge transfer effects in these calculations, the atomic radii were adjusted in such a way that atoms were charge neutral while preserving the total volume of the alloy. The quantity (c) used for comparisons is a sum of properly... 

It is clear that an ah initio calculation of the ground state of AF Cr, based on actual experimental data on the magnetic structure, would be at the moment absolutely unfeasible. That is why most calculations are performed for a vector Q = 2ir/a (1,0,0). In this case Cr has a CsCl unit cell. The local magnetic moments at different atoms are equal in magnitude but opposite in direction. Such an approach is used, in particular, in papers [2, 3, 4], in which the electronic structure of Cr is calculated within the framework of spin density functional theory. Our paper [6] is devoted to the study of the influence of relativistic effects on the electronic structure of chromium. The results of calculations demonstrate that the relativistic effects completely change the structure of the Or electron spectrum, which leads to its anisotropy for the directions being identical in the non-relativistic approach. 

When wave mechanical calculations are made according to the Schrodinger equation, the probability of finding the electron in a node is zero, but this treatment ignores relativistic considerations. When such considerations are applied, Dirac has shown that nodes do have a very small electron density Powell, R.E. J. Chem. Educ., 1968,45,558. See also Ellison, F.O. and Hollingsworth, C.A. J. Chem. Educ., 1976, 53, 767 McKelvey, D.R. J. Chem. Educ., 1983, 60, 112 Nelson, P.G. J. Chem. Educ., 1990, 67, 643. For a review of relativistic effects on chemical structures in general, see Pyykko, P. Chem. Rev., 1988, 88, 563. 

A list of recent solid-state calculations is given in Refs. [43-45]. We mention only a few of the most recent results discussing relativistic effects. Christensen and Kolar revealed very large relativistic effects in electronic band structure calculations for CsAu... 

An important advantage of ECP basis sets is their ability to incorporate approximately the physical effects of relativistic core contraction and associated changes in screening on valence orbitals, by suitable adjustments of the radius of the effective core potential. Thus, the ECP valence atomic orbitals can approximately mimic those of a fully relativistic (spinor) atomic calculation, rather than the non-relativistic all-electron orbitals they are nominally serving to replace. The partial inclusion of relativistic effects is an important physical correction for heavier atoms, particularly of the second transition series and beyond. Thus, an ECP-like treatment of heavy atoms is necessary in the non-relativistic framework of standard electronic-structure packages, even if the reduction in number of... 

The methods used to describe the electronic structure of actinide compounds must, therefore, be relativistic and must also have the capability to describe complex electronic structures. Such methods will be described in the next section. The main characteristic of successful quantum calculations for such systems is the use of multiconfigurational wave functions that include relativistic effects. These methods have been applied for a large number of molecular systems containing transition metals or actinides, and we shall give several examples from recent studies of such systems. 

The electronic structure calculations were carried out using the hybrid density functional method B3LYP [15] as implemented in the GAUSSIAN-94 package [16], in conjunction with the Stevens-Basch-Krauss (SBK) [17] effective core potential (ECP) (a relativistic ECP for Zr atom) and the standard 4-31G, CEP-31 and (8s8p6d/4s4p3d) basis sets for the H, (C, P and N), and Zr atoms, respectively. 

Our study has been restricted to molecules containing only first-row atoms and with wavefunctions dominated by one determinant. Molecules such as 03 are less accurately described, with an error of about 10 kJ/mol at the CCSD(T) level of theory. For such multiconfigurational systems, more elaborate treatments are necessary and no programs are yet available for routine applications. As we go down the periodic table, relativistic effects become more important and the electronic structures more complicated. Therefore, for such systems it is presently not possible to calculate thermochemical data to the same accuracy as for closed-shell molecules containing first-row atoms. Nevertheless, systems with wave-functions dominated by single determinant are by far the most abundant and it is promising that the accuracy of a few kJ/mol is obtainable for them. 

The other relativistic effect entirely neglected so far is the spin-orbit coupling. For systems in nondegenerate states, the only first-order contribution to TAE comes from the fine structures in the corresponding atoms. Their effects can trivially be obtained from the observed electronic spectra, and hence the computational cost of this correction is fundamentally zero. 

In the last decade, quantum-chemical investigations have become an integral part of modern chemical research. The appearance of chemistry as a purely experimental discipline has been changed by the development of electronic structure methods that are now widely used. This change became possible because contemporary quantum-chemical programs provide reliable data and important information about structures and reactivities of molecules and solids that complement results of experimental studies. Theoretical methods are now available for compounds of all elements of the periodic table, including heavy metals, as reliable procedures for the calculation of relativistic effects and efficient treatments of many-electron systems have been developed [1, 2] For transition metal (TM) compounds, accurate calculations of thermodynamic properties are of particularly great usefulness due to the sparsity of experimental data. 

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