Frozen core approach

We use Slater type basis sets that are of triple- quality in the valence region. These basis sets are augmented by two (all elements in ZORA calculations elements H - Kr in QR calculations ADF standard basis V) or one (all other elements in QR calculations ADF standard basis IV) sets of polarization functions. For Pauli (QR) calculations, we use the frozen core approach (27). The (frozen) core orbitals are... 

One way to reduce the computational cost of DFT (or WFT) calculations is to recognize that the core electrons of an atom have only an indirect influence on the atom chemistry. It thus makes sense to look for ways to precompute the atomic cores, essentially factoring them out of the larger electronic structure problem. The simplest way to do this is to freeze the core electrons, or to not allow their density to vary from that of a reference atom. This frozen core approach is generally more computationally efficient. One class of frozen core methods is the pseudopotential (PP) approach. The pseudopotential replaces the core electrons with an effective atom-centered potential that represents their influence on valence electrons and allows relativistic effects important to the core electrons to be incorporated. The advent of ultrasoft pseudopotentials (US-PPs) [18] enabled the explosion in supercell DFT calculations we have seen over the last 15 years. The projector-augmented wave (PAW) [19] is a less empirical and more accurate and transferable approach to partitioning the relativistic core and valence electrons and is also widely used today. Both the PP and PAW approaches require careful parameterizations of each atom type. 

ADF uses a STO basis set along with STO fit functions to improve the efficiency of calculating multicenter integrals. It uses a fragment orbital approach. This is, in essence, a set of localized orbitals that have been symmetry-adapted. This approach is designed to make it possible to analyze molecular properties in terms of functional groups. Frozen core calculations can also be performed. 

The most important approach to reducing the computational burden due to core electrons is to use pseudopotentials. Conceptually, a pseudopotential replaces the electron density from a chosen set of core electrons with a smoothed density chosen to match various important physical and mathematical properties of the true ion core. The properties of the core electrons are then fixed in this approximate fashion in all subsequent calculations this is the frozen core approximation. Calculations that do not include a frozen core are called all-electron calculations, and they are used much less widely than frozen core methods. Ideally, a pseudopotential is developed by considering an isolated atom of one element, but the resulting pseudopotential can then be used reliably for calculations that place this atom in any chemical environment without further adjustment of the pseudopotential. This desirable property is referred to as the transferability of the pseudopotential. Current DFT codes typically provide a library of pseudopotentials that includes an entry for each (or at least most) elements in the periodic table. 

It should be remarked that this is the first practical implementation of the calculation of spin-spin couplings involving heavy atoms applicable to medium sized molecular systems. Formerly, Khandogin and Ziegler101 developed a frozen core scalar relativistic approach in combination with the non-relativistic FC and PSO operators, but the quality of results thus obtained is poorer than those obtained with ZORA. 

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. 

The frozen-core (fc) approach is not restricted to spin-independent electronic interactions the spin-orbit (SO) interaction between core and valence electrons can be expressed by a sum of Coulomb- and exchange-type operators. The matrix element formulas can be derived in a similar way as the Sla-ter-Condon rules.27 Here, it is not important whether the Breit-Pauli spin-orbit operators or their no-pair analogs are employed as these are structurally equivalent. Differences with respect to the Slater-Condon rules occur due to the symmetry properties of the angular momentum operators and because of the presence of the spin-other-orbit interaction. It is easily shown by partial integration that the linear momentum operator p is antisymmetric with respect to orbital exchange, and the same applies to t = r x p. Therefore, spin-orbit... 

An overview of quantum Monte Carlo electronic structure studies in the context of recent effective potential implementations is given. New results for three electron systems are presented. As long as care is taken in the selection of trial wavefunctions, and appropriate frozen core corrections are included, agreement with experiment is excellent (errors less than 0.1 eV). This approach offers promise as a means of avoiding the excessive configuration expansions that have plagued more conventional transition metal studies. 

The designed molecular complexes of the reactants, products, and transition states were optimized using the Becke3LYP functional of the DFT technique and the COSMO method. The used basis set is the same as in the previous in vacuo model. The single point energy determination was performed with the CCSD(T) method and the 6-31++G(d,p) basis set within the COSMO formalism. The active space contained all of the orbitals except those belonging to frozen core electrons (Is of the O and N atoms inner electrons of Pt and Cl were covered within the ECP approach). 

Except for the efforts mentioned above, relativistic calculations of shielding evaluate the main relativistic effects using one or two component limits of the four-component formalism, quasi-relativistic approaches. These avoid the variational collapse in the calculation of the scalar relativistic terms by employing frozen cores, or effective core potentials. Some include the one-electron spin-orbit terms, and sometimes the higher order spin-orbit terms too. Others include both scalar and spin-orbit terms. Ziegler... 

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