Perturbation of the molecular orbitals

In contrast, (3.3.3)cyclazine has no aromatic resonance stabilisation and is unstable and highly reactive, displaying some diradical character. However, its hexa-aza analogue is extremely stable, this stabilisation being attributed to perturbation of the molecular orbitals by the electronegative atoms leading to a much... 

Just as the variational condition for an HF wave function can be formulated either as a matrix equation or in terms of orbital rotations (Sections 3.5 and 3.6), the CPFIF may also be viewed as a rotation of the molecular orbitals. In the absence of a perturbation the molecular orbitals make the energy stationary, i.e. the derivatives of the energy with respect to a change in the MOs are zero. This is equivalent to the statement that the off-diagonal elements of the Fock matrix between the occupied and virtual MOs are zero. 

In molecules with little or no symmetry, it may still be possible to recognize the main localized-orbital component of certain molecular orbitals. It is then convenient to adopt the label of this localized type as the label of the molecular orbital, even though the molecular symmetry does not coincide with the local symmetry. For instance, in methylenimine again, the 5A orbital is clearly built out of the in-plane 7rc 2 group orbital, with a small NH component. We therefore label the orbital t CU2, although the molecule does not have a vertical symmetry plane. Similarly, the orbitals 7A and 8A of propylene are labeled 7TqH3, tt CU2 (111.49).a Other examples where the local symmetry is sufficiently preserved and only weakly perturbed by the molecular environment are hydrazine (111.34) and methylamine (III.31). In some cases we have omitted the label as no unambiguous classification is possible. 

Inagaki, Fujimoto and Fukui demonstrated that ir-facial selectivity in the Diels-Alder reaction of 5-acetoxy- and 5-chloro-l,3-cyclopentadienes, 1 and 2, can be explained in terms of deformation of a frontier molecular orbital FMO [2], The orbital mixing rule was proposed to predict the nonequivalent orbital deformation due to asymmetric perturbation of the substituent orbital (Chapter Orbital Mixing Rules by Inagaki in this volume). 

The theoretical interpretation of the results was made (334) in terms of the molecular orbital perturbation theory, in particular, of the FMO theory (CNDO-2 method), using the model of the concerted formation of both new bonds through the cyclic transition state. In this study, the authors provided an explanation for the regioselectivity of the process and obtained a series of comparative reactivities of dipolarophiles (methyl acrylate > styrene), which is in agreement with the experimental data. However, in spite of similar tendencies, the experimental series of comparative reactivities of nitronates (249) toward methyl acrylate (250a) and styrene (250b) are not consistent with the calculated series (see Chart 3.17). This is attributed to the fact that calculation methods are insufficiently correct and the... 

More recently, molecular orbital theory has provided a basis for explaining many other aspects of chemical reactivity besides the allowedness or otherwise of pericyclic reactions. The new work is based on the perturbation treatment of molecular orbital theory, introduced by Coulson and Longuet-Higgins,2 and is most familiar to organic chemists as the frontier orbital theory of Fukui.3 Earlier molecular orbital theories of reactivity concentrated on the product-like character of transition states the concept of localization energy in aromatic substitution is a well-known example. The perturbation theory concentrates instead on the other side of the reaction coordinate. It looks at how the interaction of the molecular orbitals of the starting materials influences the transition state. Both influences on the transition state are obviously important, and it is therefore important to know about both of them, not just the one, if we want a better understanding of transition states, and hence of chemical reactivity. 

The computationally viable description of electron correlation for stationary state molecular systems has been the subject of considerable research in the past two decades. A recent review1 gives a historical perspective on the developments in the field of quantum chemistry. The predominant methods for the description of electron correlation have been configuration interactions (Cl) and perturbation theory (PT) more recently, the variant of Cl involving reoptimization of the molecular orbitals [i.e., multiconfiguration self-consistent field (MCSCF)] has received much attention.1 As is reasonable to expect, neither Cl nor PT is wholly satisfactory a possible alternative is the use of cluster operators, in the electron excitations, to describe the correlation.2-3... 

It is possible to derive instructive information concerning the general features of the electronic structure of a bond systems by making drastic assumptions on the value of the parameters a and fi. First, one obtains a bond orbital scheme if all resonance integrals between hybrids not involved in a chemical bond jure set equal to zero consequently, the delocalization effects can be treated by the standard perturbation theory of the molecular-orbital method second, if all the Coulomb integrals are... 

So far we have assumed that the overlap between the molecular orbitals of the two molecules is negligible in an excimer complex. At short distances, say rP... P < 300 pm, orbital overlap leads to further stabilization of an excimer. As can be seen from Figure 2.25, first-order perturbation of the degenerate orbitals (Section 4.3) due to... 

This corresponds to describing the function/in an M-dimensional space of the basis functions x- For a fixed basis set size M, only the components of/that lie within this space can be described, and/is therefore approximated. As the size of the basis set M is increased, the approximation becomes better since more and more components of / can be described. If the basis set has the property of being complete, the function / can be described to any desired accuracy, provided that a sufficient number of functions are included. The expansion coefficients C are often determined either by variational or perturbational methods. For the expansion of the molecular orbitals in a Flartree-Fock wave function, for example, the coefficients are determined by requiring the total energy to be a minimum. 

The last three terms of this expression involve the derivatives of the molecular orbital coefficients and cannot easily be avoided. They are obtained through coupled perturbed Hartree-Fock theory (CPHF). ... 

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