Nuclear coordinates

Classically, the nuclei vibrate in die potential V(R), much like two steel balls coimected by a spring which is stretched or compressed and then allowed to vibrate freely. This vibration along the nuclear coordinated is our first example of internal molecular motion. Most of the rest of this section is concerned with different aspects of molecular vibrations in increasingly complicated sittiations. 

One common approximation is to separate the nuclear and electronic degrees of freedom. Since the nuclei are considerably more massive than the electrons, it can be assumed that the electrons will respond mstantaneously to the nuclear coordinates. This approximation is called the Bom-Oppenlieimer or adiabatic approximation. It allows one to treat the nuclear coordinates as classical parameters. For most condensed matter systems, this assumption is highly accurate [11, 12]. 

Here each < ) (0 is a vibrational wavefiinction, a fiinction of the nuclear coordinates Q, in first approximation usually a product of hamionic oscillator wavefimctions for the various nomial coordinates. Each j (x,Q) is the electronic wavefimctioii describing how the electrons are distributed in the molecule. However, it has the nuclear coordinates within it as parameters because the electrons are always distributed around the nuclei and follow those nuclei whatever their position during a vibration. The integration of equation (Bl.1.1) can be carried out in two steps—first an integration over the electronic coordinates v, and then integration over the nuclear coordinates 0. We define an electronic transition moment integral which is a fimctioii of nuclear position ... 

Since the vibrational eigenstates of the ground electronic state constitute an orthonomial basis set, tire off-diagonal matrix elements in equation (B 1.3.14) will vanish unless the ground state electronic polarizability depends on nuclear coordinates. (This is the Raman analogue of the requirement in infrared spectroscopy that, to observe a transition, the electronic dipole moment in the ground electronic state must properly vary with nuclear displacements from... 

The fitting parameters in the transfomi method are properties related to the two potential energy surfaces that define die electronic resonance. These curves are obtained when the two hypersurfaces are cut along theyth nomial mode coordinate. In order of increasing theoretical sophistication these properties are (i) the relative position of their minima (often called the displacement parameters), (ii) the force constant of the vibration (its frequency), (iii) nuclear coordinate dependence of the electronic transition moment and (iv) the issue of mode mixing upon excitation—known as the Duschinsky effect—requiring a multidimensional approach. 

Laser Raman diagnostic teclmiques offer remote, nonintnisive, nonperturbing measurements with high spatial and temporal resolution [158], This is particularly advantageous in the area of combustion chemistry. Physical probes for temperature and concentration measurements can be debatable in many combustion systems, such as furnaces, internal combustors etc., since they may disturb the medium or, even worse, not withstand the hostile enviromnents [159]. Laser Raman techniques are employed since two of the dominant molecules associated with air-fed combustion are O2 and N2. Flomonuclear diatomic molecules unable to have a nuclear coordinate-dependent dipole moment caimot be diagnosed by infrared spectroscopy. Other combustion species include CFl, CO2, FI2O and FI2 [160]. These molecules are probed by Raman spectroscopy to detenuine the temperature profile and species concentration m various combustion processes. 

Flere we distinguish between nuclear coordinates R and electronic coordinates r is the single-particle kinetic energy operator, and Vp is the total pseudopotential operator for the interaction between the valence electrons and the combined nucleus + frozen core electrons. The electron-electron and micleus-micleus Coulomb interactions are easily recognized, and the remaining tenu electronic exchange and correlation... 

A quantum mechanical treatment of molecular systems usually starts with the Bom-Oppenlieimer approximation, i.e., the separation of the electronic and nuclear degrees of freedom. This is a very good approximation for well separated electronic states. The expectation value of the total energy in this case is a fiinction of the nuclear coordinates and the parameters in the electronic wavefunction, e.g., orbital coefficients. The wavefiinction parameters are most often detennined by tire variation theorem the electronic energy is made stationary (in the most important ground-state case it is minimized) with respect to them. The... 

The electronic energy W in the Bom-Oppenlieimer approxunation can be written as W= fV(q, p), where q is the vector of nuclear coordinates and the vector p contains the parameters of the electronic wavefimction. The latter are usually orbital coefficients, configuration amplitudes and occasionally nonlinear basis fiinction parameters, e.g., atomic orbital positions and exponents. The electronic coordinates have been integrated out and do not appear in W. Optimizing the electronic parameters leaves a function depending on the nuclear coordinates only, E = (q). We will assume that both W q, p) and (q) and their first derivatives are continuous fimctions of the variables q- and py... 

Molecular aspects of geometric phase are associated with conical intersections between electronic energy surfaces, W(Q), where Q denotes the set of say k vibrational coordinates. In the simplest two-state case, the W Q) are eigen-surfaces of the nuclear coordinate dependent Hermitian electronic Hamiltonian... 

Aspects of the Jahn-Teller symmetry argument will be relevant in later sections. Suppose that the electronic states aie n-fold degenerate, with symmetry at some symmetiical nuclear configuration Qq. The fundamental question concerns the symmetry of the nuclear coordinates that can split the degeneracy linearly in Q — Qo, in other words those that appeal linearly in Taylor series for the matrix elements A H B). Since the bras (/1 and kets B) both transform as and H are totally symmetric, it would appear at first sight that the Jahn-Teller active modes must have symmetry Fg = F x F. There... 

The symmetry argument actually goes beyond the above deterniination of the symmetries of Jahn-Teller active modes, the coefficients of the matrix element expansions in different coordinates are also symmetry determined. Consider, for simplicity, an electronic state of symmetiy in an even-electron molecule with a single threefold axis of symmetry, and choose a representation in which two complex electronic components, e ) = 1/v ( ca) i cb)), and two degenerate complex nuclear coordinate combinations Q = re " each have character T under the C3 operation, where x — The bras e have character x. Since the Hamiltonian operator is totally symmetric, the diagonal matrix elements e H e ) are totally symmetric, while the characters of the off-diagonal elements ezf H e ) are x. Since x = 1, it follows that an expansion of the complex Hamiltonian matrix to quadratic terms in Q. takes the form... 

Suppose that x [Q)) is the adiabatic eigenstate of the Hamiltonian H[q]Q), dependent on internal variables q (the electronic coordinates in molecular contexts), and parameterized by external coordinates Q (the nuclear coordinates). Since x Q)) must satisfy... 

First, the starting point for the discussion is that the real smoothly varying electronic eigenstates x Q)) close to a double degeneracy, Qo, are found to change sign around any path in a nuclear coordinate plane, Q, containing the... 

Here, the Ui no)s are the electronic eigenvalues dependent on the nuclear coordinate tiQ. Note that no = n is defined as the adiabatic case and no / n is defined as the diabatic case. 

For example, in the case of the x component of the nuclear coordinates we have... 

If now the nuclear coordinates are regarded as dynamical variables, rather than parameters, then in the vicinity of the intersection point, the energy eigenfunction, which is a combined electronic-nuclear wave function, will contain a superposition of the two adiabatic, superposition states, with nuclear... 

V is the derivative with respect to R.) We stress that in this formalism, I and J denote the complete adiabatic electronic state, and not a component thereof. Both /) and y) contain the nuclear coordinates, designated by R, as parameters. The above line integral was used and elaborated in calculations of nuclear dynamics on potential surfaces by several authors [273,283,288-301]. (For an extended discussion of this and related matters the reviews of Sidis [48] and Pacher et al. [49] are especially infonnative.)... 

The symbol M represents the masses of the nuclei in the molecule, which for simplicity are taken to be equal. The symbol is the Kionecker delta. The tensor notation is used in this section and the summation convention is assumed for all repeated indexes not placed in parentheses. In Eq. (91) the NACT appears (this being a matrix in the electronic Hilbert space, whose components are denoted by labels k, m, and a vector with respect to the b component of the nuclear coordinate R). It is given by an integral over the electron coordinates... 

Under circumstances that this condition holds an ADT matrix, A exists such that the adiabatic electronic set can be transformed to a diabatic one. Working with this diabatic set, at least in some part of the nuclear coordinate space, was the objective aimed at in [72]. 

Projecting the nuclear solutions Xt( ) oti the Hilbert space of the electronic states (r, R) and working in the projected Hilbert space of the nuclear coordinates R. The equation of motion (the nuclear Schrddinger equation) is shown in Eq. (91) and the Lagrangean in Eq. (96). In either expression, the terms with represent couplings between the nuclear wave functions X (K) and X (R). that is, (virtual) transitions (or admixtures) between the nuclear states. (These may represent transitions also for the electronic states, which would get expressed in finite electionic lifetimes.) The expression for the transition matrix is not elementaiy, since the coupling terms are of a derivative type. 

This makes it desirable to define other representations in addition to the electronically adiabatic one [Eqs. (9)-(12)], in which the adiabatic electronic wave function basis set used in the Bom-Huang expansion (12) is replaced by another basis set of functions of the electronic coordinates. Such a different electronic basis set can be chosen so as to minimize the above mentioned gradient term. This term can initially be neglected in the solution of the / -electionic-state nuclear motion Schrodinger equation and reintroduced later using perturbative or other methods, if desired. This new basis set of electronic wave functions can also be made to depend parametrically, like their adiabatic counterparts, on the internal nuclear coordinates q that were defined after Eq. (8). This new electronic basis set is henceforth refened to as diabatic and, as is obvious, leads to an electronically diabatic representation that is not unique unlike the adiabatic one, which is unique by definition. 

As discussed in Section II.A, the adiabatic electronic wave functions and depend on the nuclear coordinates Rx only through the subset... 

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