Hamilton operator

The intriguing point about the second set of equations is that q is now kept constant. Thus the vector ip evolves according to a time-dependent Schrddinger equation with time-independent Hamilton operator H[q) and the update of the classical momentum p is obtained by integrating the Hellmann-Feynman forces [3] acting on the classical particles along the computed ip t) (plus a constant update due to the purely classical force field). 

If the Hamilton operator, H, is independent of time, the time dependence of the wave function can be separated out as a simple phase factor. 

For a general A/-particle system the Hamilton operator contains kinetic (T) and potential (V) energy for all particles. 

Let us first review the Bom-Oppenheimer approximation in a bit more detail. The total Hamilton operator can be written as the kinetic and potential energies of the nuclei and electrons. 

The Hamilton operator is first transformed to the centre of mass system, where it may be... 

Here Hg is the electronic Hamilton operator and H p is called the mass-polarization (Mtot is the total mass of all the nuclei and the sum is over all electrons). We note that He depends only on the nuclear positions (via Vne and Vnn, see eq. (3.23)) and not on their momenta. 

Having stated the limitations (non-relativistic Hamilton operator and the Bom-Oppenheimer approximation), we are ready to consider the electronic Schrodinger equation. It can only be solved exactly for the Hj molecule, and similar one-electron systems. In the general case we have to rely on approximate (numerical) methods. By neglecting relativistic effects, we also have to introduce electron spin as an ad hoc quantum effect. Each electron has a spin quantum number of 1 /2. In the presence of an... 

The energy of an approximate wave function can be calculated as the expectation value of the Hamilton operator, divided by the norm of the wave function. 

Consider now the Hamilton operator. The nuclear-nuclear repulsion does not depend on electron coordinates and is a constant for a given nuclear geometry. The nuclear-electron attraction is a sum of terms, each depending only on one electron coordinate. The same holds for the electron kinetic energy. The electron-electron repulsion, however, depends on two electron coordinates. 

The Fock operator is an effective one-electron energy operator, describing the kinetic energy of an electron, the attraction to all the nuclei and the repulsion to all the other electrons (via the J and K operators). Note that the Fock operator is associated with the variation of the total energy, not the energy itself. The Hamilton operator (3.23) is not a sum of Fock operators. 

There are three main methods for calculating electron correlation Configuration Interaction (Cl), Many Body Perturbation Theory (MBPT) and Coupled Cluster (CC). A word of caution before we describe these methods in more details. The Slater determinants are composed of spin-MOs, but since the Hamilton operator is independent of spin, the spin dependence can be factored out. Furthermore, to facilitate notation, it is often assumed that the HF determinant is of the RHF type. Finally, many of the expressions below involve double summations over identical sets of functions. To ensure only the unique terms are included, one of the summation indices must be restricted. Alternatively, both indices can be allowed to run over all values, and the overcounting corrected by a factor of 1/2. Various combinations of these assumptions result in final expressions which differ by factors of 1 /2, 1/4 etc. from those given here. In the present book the MOs are always spin-MOs, and conversion of a restricted summation to an unrestricted is always noted explicitly. 

The diagonal elements in the sum involving the Hamilton operator are energies of the corresponding deteiminants. The overlap elements between different determinants are zero as they are built from orthogonal MOs (eq. (3.20)). The variational procedure corresponds to setting alt the derivatives of the Lagrange function (4.3) with respect to the at expansion coefficients equal to zero. 

If the system contains symmetry, there are additional Cl matrix elements which become zero. The symmetry of a determinant is given as the direct product of the symmetries of the MOs. The Hamilton operator always belongs to the totally symmetric representation, thus if two determinants belong to different irreducible representations, the Cl matrix element is zero. This is again fairly obvious if the interest is in a state of a specific symmetry, only those determinants which have the correct symmetry can contribute. 

The idea in perturbation methods is that the problem at hand only differs slightly from a problem which has already been solved (exactly or approximately). The solution to the given problem should therefore in some sense be close to the solution of the already known system. This is described mathematically by defining a Hamilton operator which consists of two part, a reference (Hq) and a perturbation (H )- The premise of perturbation methods is that the H operator in some sense is small compared to Hq. In quantum mechanics, perturbational methods can be used for adding corrections to solutions which employ an independent particle approximation, and the theoretical framework is then called Many-Body Perturbation Theory (MBPT). 

Let us assume that the Schrddinger equation for the reference Hamilton operator is solved. 

The solutions for the unperturbed Hamilton operator from a complete set (since Ho is hermitian) which can be chosen to be orthonormal, and A is a (variable) parameter determining the strength of the perturbation. At present we will only consider cases where the perturbation is time-independent, and the reference wave function is non-degenerate. To keep the notation simple, we will furthermore only consider the lowest energy state. The perturbed Schrodinger equation is... 

So far the theory has been completely general. In order to apply perturbation theory to the calculation of correlation energy, the unperturbed Hamilton operator must be selected. The most common choice is to take this as a sum over Fock operators, leading to Mdller-Plesset (MP) perturbation theory. The sum of Fock operators counts the (average) electron-electron repulsion twice (eq. (3.43)), and the perturbation becomes... 

Just as single reference Cl can be extended to MRCI, it is also possible to use perturbation methods with a multi-detenninant reference wave function. Formulating MR-MBPT methods, however, is not straightforward. The main problem here is similar to that of ROMP methods, the choice of the unperturbed Hamilton operator. Several different choices are possible, which will give different answers when the tlieory is carried out only to low order. Nevertheless, there are now several different implementations of MP2 type expansions based on a CASSCF reference, denoted CASMP2 or CASPT2. Experience of their performance is still somewhat limited. 

Expanding out the exponential in eq. (4.46) and using the fact that the Hamilton operator contains only one- and two-electron operators (eq. (3.24)) we get... 

The equations (4.56) and (4.57) involve matrix elements between singles and triples and between doubles and quadruples. However, since the Hamilton operator only contains... 

Assume for the moment a Hamilton operator of the following form with 0 < A < 1. 

A fully relativistic treatment of more than one particle has not yet been developed. For many particle systems it is assumed that each electron can be described by a Dirac operator (ca ir + p mc ) and the many-electron operator is a sum of such terms, in analogy with the kinetic energy in non-relativistic theory. Furthermore, potential energy operators are added to form a total operator equivalent to the Hamilton operator in non-relativistic theory. Since this approach gives results which agree with experiments, the assumptions appear justified. 

New (magnetic) interactions in the Hamilton operator due to electron spin. This destroys the picture of an orbital having a definite spin. 

Ho is the normal electronic Hamilton operator, and the perturbations are described by the operators Pi and P2, with A determining the strength. Based on an expansion in exact wave functions, Rayleigh-Schrddinger perturbation theory (section 4.8) gives the first- and second-order energy collections. 

The Hamilton operator in the presence of a magnetic field is given as... 

In order to describe nuclear spin-spin coupling, we need to include electron and nuclear spins, which are not present in the non-relativistic Hamilton operator. A relativistic treatment, as shown in Section 8.2, gives a direct nuclear-nuclear coupling term (eq. (8.33)). 

Many problems simplify significantly by choosing a suitable coordinate system. At the heart of these transfonnations is the separability theorem. If a Hamilton operator depending on N coordinates can be written as a sum of operators which only depend on one coordinate, the corresponding N coordinate wave function can be written as a product of one-coordinate functions, and the total energy as a sum of energies. 

Each time step thus involves a calculation of the effect of the Hamilton operator acting on the wave function. In fully quantum methods the wave function is often represented on a grid of points, these being the equivalent of basis functions for an electronic wave function. The effect of the potential energy operator is easy to evaluate, as it just involves a multiplication of the potential at each point with the value of the wave function. The kinetic energy operator, however, involves the derivative of the wave function, and a direct evaluation would require a very dense set of grid points for an accurate representation. 

For spherical or ellipsoidal cavities, eq. (16.44) can be solved analytically, but for molecular shaped surfaces, it must be done numerically, typically by breaking it into smaller fractions which are assumed to have a constant a. Once o-(rs) is determined, the associated potential is added as an extra term to the Hamilton operator. 

The effect of induced dipoles in the medium adds an extra term to the molecular Hamilton operator. 

Hamilton operator or Hamilton matrix (general, electronic, nuclear)... 

Matrix element of a Hamilton operator between Slater determinants... 

In wave mechanics the electron density is given by the square of the wave function integrated over — 1 electron coordinates, and the wave function is determined by solving the Schrddinger equation. For a system of M nuclei and N electrons, the electronic Hamilton operator contains the following tenns. 

Within the Bom-Oppenheimer approximation, the last term is a constant. It is seen that the Hamilton operator is uniquely determined by the number of electrons and the potential created by the nuclei, V e, i.e. the nuclear charges and positions. This means that the ground-state wave function (and thereby the electron density) and ground state energy are also given uniquely by these quantities. 

Assume now that two different external potentials (which may be from nuclei), Vext and Vgjjj, result in the same electron density, p. Two different potentials imply that the two Hamilton operators are different, H and H, and the corresponding lowest energy wave functions are different, and Taking as an approximate wave function for H and using the variational principle yields... 

Addition of these two inequalities gives Eq + Eo>Eq + Eo, showing that the assumption was wrong. In other words, for the ground state there is a one-to-one correspondence between the electron density and the nuclear potential, and thereby also with the Hamilton operator and tlie energy. In the language of Density Functional Theory, the energy is a unique functional of the electron density, [p]. 

The notation used in this book is in terms of first quantization. The electronic Hamilton operator, for example, is written as (eq. (3.23))... 

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