Molecular orbitals Schrodinger

The quantum mechanics methods in HyperChem differ in how they approximate the Schrodinger equation and how they compute potential energy. The ab initio method expands molecular orbitals into a linear combination of atomic orbitals (LCAO) and does not introduce any further approximation. 

These atomic orbitals, called Slater Type Orbitals (STOs), are a simplification of exact solutions of the Schrodinger equation for the hydrogen atom (or any one-electron atom, such as Li" ). Hyper-Chem uses Slater atomic orbitals to construct semi-empirical molecular orbitals. The complete set of Slater atomic orbitals is called the basis set. Core orbitals are assumed to be chemically inactive and are not treated explicitly. Core orbitals and the atomic nucleus form the atomic core. 

The simplest approximation to the Schrodinger equation is an independent-electron approximation, such as the Hiickel method for Jt-electron systems, developed by E. Hiickel. Later, others, principally Roald Hoffmann of Cornell University, extended the Hiickel approximations to arbitrary systems having both n and a electrons—the Extended Hiickel Theory (EHT) approximation. This chapter describes some of the basics of molecular orbital theory with a view to later explaining the specifics of HyperChem EHT calculations. 

Now that you know the mathematical form, you can solve the independent-electron Schrodinger equation for the molecular orbitals. First substitute the LCAO form above into equation (47) on page 193, multiply on the left by and integrate to represent... 

Use of high-level ab initio molecular orbital methods or density functional Hamiltonians to simulate the QM region through approximate solutions of the electronic Schrodinger equation. 

These equations, derived from the Schrodinger equation of Quantum Mechanics, can be solved iteratively for matrices and jL, containing as elements the appropriately normalized molecular orbital (MO) coefficients and orbital energy eigenvalues of eq. 

A rigorous mathematical formalism of chemical bonding is possible only through the quantum mechanical treatment of molecules. However, obtaining analytical solutions for the Schrodinger wave equation is not possible even for the simplest systems with more than one electron and as a result attempts have been made to obtain approximate solutions a series of approximations have been introduced. As a first step, the Bom-Oppenheimer approximation has been invoked, which allows us to treat the electronic and nuclear motions separately. In solving the electronic part, mainly two formalisms, VB and molecular orbital (MO), have been in use and they are described below. Both are wave function-based methods. The wave function T is the fundamental descriptor in quantum mechanics but it is not physically measurable. The squared value of the wave function T 2dT represents probability of finding an electron in the volume element dr. 

One of the more radical approximations introduced in the deduction of the Hartree-Fock equations 2 from the Schrodinger equation 3 is the assumption that the wavefunction can be expressed as a single Slater determinant, an antisymmetrized product of molecular orbitals. This is not exact, because the correct wavefunction is in fact a linear combination of Slater determinants, as shown in equation 5, where Di are Slater determinants and c are the coefficients indicating their relative weight in the wavefunction. 

Practitioners of quantum chemistry employed both the visual imagery of nineteenth-century theoretical chemists like Kekule and Crum Brown and the abstract symbolism of twentieth-century mathematical physicists like Dirac and Schrodinger. Pauling s Nature of the Chemical Bond abounded in pictures of hexagons, tetrahedrons, spheres, and dumbbells. Mulliken s 1948 memoir on the theory of molecular orbitals included a list of 120 entries for symbols and words having exact definitions and usages in the new mathematical language of quantum chemistry. 

The second class of theories can be characterized as attempts to find approximate solutions to the Schrodinger equation of the molecular complex as a whole. Two approaches became important in numerical calculations perturbation theory (PT) and molecular orbital (MO) methods. 

In the MO approach molecular orbitals are expressed as a linear combination of atomic orbitals (LCAO) atomic orbitals (AO), in return, are determined from the approximate numerical solution of the electronic Schrodinger equation for each of the parent atoms in the molecule. This is the reason why hydrogen-atom-like wavefunctions continue to be so important in quantum mechanics. Mathematically, MO-LCAO means that the wave-functions of the molecule containing N atoms can be expressed as... 

Molecular orbital an initio calculations. These calcnlations represent a treatment of electron distribution and electron motion which implies that individual electrons are one-electron functions containing a product of spatial functions called molecular orbitals hi(x,y,z), 4/2(3 ,y,z), and so on. In the simplest version of this theory, a single assignment of electrons to orbitals is made. In turn, the orbitals form a many-electron wave function, 4/, which is the simplest molecular orbital approximation to solve Schrodinger s equation. In practice, the molecular orbitals, 4 1, 4/2,- -are taken as a linear combination of N known one-electron functions 4>i(x,y,z), 4>2(3,y,z) ... 

The electronic Schrodinger equation is still intractable and further approximations are required. The most obvious is to insist that electrons move independently of each other. In practice, individual electrons are confined to functions termed molecular orbitals, each of which is determined by assuming that the electron is moving within an average field of all the other electrons. The total wavefunction is written in the form of a single determinant (a so-called Slater determinant). This means that it is antisymmetric upon interchange of electron coordinates. ... 

Molecular Orbital Models. Methods based on writing the many-electron solution of the Electronic Schrodinger Equation in terms of a product of one-electron solutions (Molecular Orbitals). 

Spin Orbital. The form of Wavefunction resulting from application of the Hartree-Fock Approximation to the Electronic Schrodinger Equation. Comprises a space part (Molecular Orbital) and one of... 

As a result of these assumptions, qualitative molecular orbital models can be developed in which one assumes that each mo (f>i obeys a one-electron Schrodinger equation... 

We know that not all solids conduct electricity, and the simple free electron model discussed previously does not explain this. To understand semiconductors and insulators, we turn to another description of solids, molecular orbital theory. In the molecular orbital approach to bonding in solids, we regard solids as a very large collection of atoms bonded together and try to solve the Schrodinger equation for a periodically repeating system. For chemists, this has the advantage that solids are not treated as very different species from small molecules. 

The concepts which we need for understanding the structural trends within covalently bonded solids are most easily introduced by first considering the much simpler system of diatomic molecules. They are well described within the molecular orbital (MO) framework that is based on the overlapping of atomic wave functions. This picture, therefore, makes direct contact with the properties of the individual free atoms which we discussed in the previous chapter, in particular the atomic energy levels and angular character of the valence orbitals. We will see that ubiquitous quantum mechanical concepts such as the covalent bond, overlap repulsion, hybrid orbitals, and the relative degree of covalency versus ionicity all arise naturally from solutions of the one-electron Schrodinger equation for diatomic molecules such as H2, N2, and LiH. 

The cylindrical symmetry about the inter-nuclear axis leads to the solutions of the molecular Schrodinger equation, eqn (3.3), having either a or character. Taking the z axis along the axis of the molecule, the a eigenfunctions will comprise linear combinations of the , , and atomic orbitals so that we can write the molecular orbital as... 

Ah, the crux of the problem, is it not Up until now, we ve just assumed we have some set of molecular orbitals i or Vu which we can manipulate at will. But how does one come up with even approximate solutions to the many body Schrodinger equation without having to solve it Start with the celebrated linear combination of atomic orbitals to get molecular orbitals (LCAO-MO) approximation. This allows us to use some set of (approximate) atomic orbitals, the basis functions which we know and love, to expand the MOs in. In the most general terms,... 

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