Point perturbed-cluster model

As has been discussed above, molecular clusters produced in a supersonic expansion are preferred model systems to study solvation-mediated photoreactions from a molecular point of view. Under such conditions, intramolecular electron transfer reactions in D-A molecules, traditionally observed in solutions, are amenable to a detailed spectroscopic study. One should note, however, the difference between the possible energy dissipation processes in jet-cooled clusters and in solution. Since molecular clusters are produced in the gas phase under collision-free conditions, they are free of perturbations from many-body interactions or macro-molecular structures inherent for molecules in the condensed phase. In addition, they are frozen out in their minimum energy conformations which may differ from those relevant at room temperature. Another important aspect of the condensed phase is its role as a heat bath. Thus, excess energy in a molecule may be dissipated to the bulk on a picosecond time-scale. On the other hand, in a cluster excess energy may only be dissipated to a restricted number of oscillators and the cluster may fragment by losing solvent molecules. 

To address precisely the above points, we have carried out calculations of protonated clusters up to n = 14 using the DFT modelling discussed in the previous Section. To verify some of the present findings we have also examined with fully ab initio methods the features of the n = 6, 7 and 8 clusters, using the perturbative Moeller-Plesset approach (MP4) to obtain the correlation energy corrections [29]. 

One of the most dramatic changes in the standard theoretical model used most widely in quantum chemistry occurred in the early 1990s. Until then, ab initio quantum chemical applications [1] typically used a Hartree-Fock (HF) starting point, followed in many cases by second-order Moller-Plesset perturbation theory. For small molecules requiring more accuracy, additional calculations were performed with coupled-cluster theory, quadratic configuration interaction, or related methods. While these techniques are still used widely, a substantial majority of the papers being published today are based on applications of density functional theory (DFT) [2]. Almost universally, the researchers use a functional due to Becke, whose papers in 1992 and 1993 contributed to this remarkable transformation that changed the entire landscape of quantum chemistry. 

In order to overcome the shortcommings of standard post-Hartree-Fock approaches in their handling of the dynamic and nondynamic correlations, we investigate the possibility of mutual enhancement between variational and perturbative approaches, as represented by various Cl and CC methods, respectively. This is achieved either via the amplitude-corrections to the one- and two-body CCSD cluster amplitudes based on some external source, in particular a modest size MR CISD wave function, in the so-called reduced multireference (RMR) CCSD method, or via the energy-corrections to the standard CCSD based on the same MR CISD wave function. The latter corrections are based on the asymmetric energy formula and may be interpreted either as the MR CISD corrections to CCSD or RMR CCSD, or as the CCSD corrections to MR CISD. This reciprocity is pointed out and a new perturbative correction within the MR CISD is also formulated. The earlier results are briefly summarized and compared with those introduced here for the first time using the exactly solvable double-zeta model of the HF and N2 molecules. 

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