Potential energy orbitals

There are significant differences between tliese two types of reactions as far as how they are treated experimentally and theoretically. Photodissociation typically involves excitation to an excited electronic state, whereas bimolecular reactions often occur on the ground-state potential energy surface for a reaction. In addition, the initial conditions are very different. In bimolecular collisions one has no control over the reactant orbital angular momentum (impact parameter), whereas m photodissociation one can start with cold molecules with total angular momentum 0. Nonetheless, many theoretical constructs and experimental methods can be applied to both types of reactions, and from the point of view of this chapter their similarities are more important than their differences. 

Wliat is left to understand about this reaction One key remaining issue is the possible role of otiier electronic surfaces. The discussion so far has assumed that the entire reaction takes place on a single Bom-Oppenlieimer potential energy surface. Flowever, three potential energy surfaces result from the mteraction between an F atom and FI,. The spin-orbit splitting between the - 12 and Pi/2 states of a free F atom is 404 cm When... 

Figure 3. Low-energy vibronic spectrum in a. 11 electronic state of a linear triatomic molecule, computed for various values of the Renner parameter e and spin-orbit constant Aso (in cm ). The spectrum shown in the center of figure (e = —0.17, A o = —37cm ) corresponds to the A TT state of NCN [28,29]. The zero on the energy scale represents the minimum of the potential energy surface. Solid lines A = 0 vibronic levels dashed lines K = levels dash-dotted lines K = 1 levels dotted lines = 3 levels. Spin-vibronic levels are denoted by the value of the corresponding quantum number P P = Af - - E note that E is in this case spin quantum number),...

For molecules with an even number of electrons, the spin function has only single-valued representations just as the spatial wave function. For these molecules, any degenerate spin-orbit state is unstable in the symmetric conformation since there is always a nontotally symmetric normal coordinate along which the potential energy depends linearly. For example, for an - state of a C3 molecule, the spin function has species da and E that upon... 

The UIIF wnive fimction can also apply to singlet molecules. F sn-ally, the results are the same as for the faster RHF method. That is, electron s prefer to pair, with an alpha electron sh arin g a m olecu lar space orbital with a beta electron. L se the L lIF method for singlet states only to avoid potential energy discontinuities when a covalent bond Is broken and electron s can impair (see Bond Breaking on page 46). 

At normal bond lengths, the LHK solution usually degenerates to the situation where the two spatial orbitals become identical. The LHK solution for Hp, for example, has a smooth potential energy... 

I the sum of the kinetic and potential energy of an electron in the orbital lUg in the electro-atic field of the two bare nuclei. This integral can in turn be expanded by substituting the... 

Although we are solving for one-electron orbitals, r /i and r /2, we do not want to fall into the trap of the last calculation. We shall include an extra potential energy term Vi to account for the repulsion between the negative charge on the first electron we consider, electron I, exerted by the other electron in helium, electron 2. We don t know where electron 2 is, so we must integrate over all possible locations of electron 2... 

We shall concenPate on the potential energy term of the nuclear Hamiltonian and adopt a sPategy similar to the one used in simplifying the equation of an ellipse in Chapter 2. There we found that an arbiPary elliptical orbit can be described with an arbiParily oriented pair of coordinates (for two degrees of freedom) but that we must expect cross terms like 8xy in Eq. (2-40)... 

Hamiltonian contains (fe2/2me r ) 32/3y2 whereas the potential energy part is independent of Y, the energies of the moleeular orbitals depend on the square of the m quantum number. Thus, pairs of orbitals with m= 1 are energetieally degenerate pairs with m= 2 are degenerate, and so on. The absolute value of m, whieh is what the energy depends on, is ealled the X quantum number. Moleeular orbitals with = 0 are ealled a orbitals those with = 1 are 7i orbitals and those with = 2 are 5 orbitals. 

The essence of this analysis involves being able to write each wavefunction as a combination of determinants each of which involves occupancy of particular spin-orbitals. Because different spin-orbitals interact differently with, for example, a colliding molecule, the various determinants will interact differently. These differences thus give rise to different interaction potential energy surfaces. 

Orbital-based methods can be used to compute transition structures. When a negative frequency is computed, it indicates that the geometry of the molecule corresponds to a maximum of potential energy with respect to the positions of the nuclei. The transition state of a reaction is characterized by having one negative frequency. Structures with two negative frequencies are called second-order saddle points. These structures have little relevance to chemistry since it is extremely unlikely that the molecule will be found with that structure. 

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. 

The researchers established that the potential energy surface is dependent on the basis set (the description of individual atomic orbitals). Using an ab initio method (6-3IG ), they found eight Cg stationary points for the conformational potential energy surface, including four minima. They also found four minima of Cg symmetry. Both the AMI and PM3 semi-empirical methods found three minima. Only one of these minima corresponded to the 6-3IG conformational potential energy surface. 

The total energy in an Molecular Orbital calculation is the net result of electronic kinetic energies and the interactions between all electrons and atomic cores in the system. This is the potential energy for nuclear motion in the Born-Oppenheimer approximation (see page 32). 

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