Electrons in Molecular Calculations

In molecular DFT calculations, it is natural to include all electrons in the calculations and hence no further subtleties than the ones described arise in the calculation of the isomer shift. However, there are situations where other approaches are advantageous. The most prominent situation is met in the case of solids. Here, it is difficult to capture the effects of an infinite system with a finite size cluster model and one should resort to dedicated solid state techniques. It appears that very efficient solid state DFT implementations are possible on the basis of plane wave basis sets. However, it is difficult to describe the core region with plane wave basis sets. Hence, the core electrons need to be replaced by pseudopotentials, which precludes a direct calculation of the electron density at the Mossbauer absorber atom. However, there are workarounds and the subtleties involved in this subject are discussed in a complementary chapter by Blaha (see CD-ROM, Part HI). 

DFT has come to the fore in molecular calculations as providing a relatively cheap and effective method for including important correlation effects in the initial and final states. ADFT methods have been used, but by far the most popular approach is that based on Slater s half electron transition state theory [73] and its developments. Unlike Hartree-Fock theory, DFT has no Koopmans theorem that relates the orbital energies to an ionisation potential, instead it has been shown that the orbital energy (e,) is related to the gradient of the total energy E(N) of an N-electron system, with respect to the occupation number of the 2th orbital ( , ) [74],... 

As required by (36), the variational parameter k is calculated to vary between k = 2 at R = 0 and k = 1 at R > 5ao- The parameter k is routinely interpreted as either a screening constant or an effective nuclear charge, as if it had real physical meaning. In fact, it is no more than a mathematical artefact, deliberately introduced to remedy the inadequacy of hydrogenic wave functions as descriptors of electrons in molecular environments. No such parameter occurs within the Burrau [84] scheme. 

The most difficult problem we face in deciding to use a basis of hybrids which reflects the molecular symmetry is how do we choose such a basis in view of the enormous numerical difficulties involved in optimising the non-linear parameters in molecular calculations The real question is are there any rules for this choice, can the optimisation be done (at least approximately) once and for all The chemical evidence is for us — it is the most basic concept of the theory of valence that particular electronic sub-structures tend to be largely environment-independent. How can we select our basis to reflect this chemical fact ... 

The Pauli operator of equations 2 to 5 has serious stability problems so that it should not, at least in principle, be used beyond first order perturbation theory (20). These problems are circumvented in the QR approach where the frozen core approximation (21) is used to exclude the highly relativistic core electrons from the variational treatment in molecular calculations. Thus, the core electronic density along with the respective potential are extracted from fully relativistic atomic Dirac-Slater calculations, and the core orbitals are kept frozen in subsequent molecular calculations. 

Molecular mechanics can be considered to arise from the Bom-Oppenheimer approximation, which assumes that the motions of the nuclei of a molecule are independent of the motions of the electrons. In molecular mechanics calculations, the arrange-... 

Huzinaga was the recipient of the 1994 John C. Polanyi Award of the Canadian Society for Chemistry. In his award lecture he described his model potential method, which deals only with the active electrons in molecular and solid state calculations. An invited review article,59 based on his 1994 Polanyi Award lecture, chronicles his efforts to develop a sound theoretical framework for the core-valence separation of electrons, a problem Van Vleck and Sherman60 once referred to as the nightmare of the inner core. ... 

The electron distribution around an atom can be represented in several ways. Hydrogenlike functions based on solutions of the Schrodinger equation for the hydrogen atom, polynomial functions with adjustable parameters, Slater functions (Eq. 5.95), and Gaussian functions (Eq. 5.96) have all been used [34]. Of these, Slater and Gaussian functions are mathematically the simplest, and it is these that are currently used as the basis functions in molecular calculations. Slater functions are used in semiempirical calculations, like the extended Hiickel method (Section 4.4) and other semiempirical methods (Chapter 6). Modem molecular ab initio programs employ Gaussian functions. 

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