Potential energy surface quantum-classical framework

Since DFT calculations are in principle only applicable for the electronic ground state, they cannot be used in order to describe electronic excitations. Still it is possible to treat electronic exciations from first principles by either using quantum chemistry methods [114] or time-dependent density-functional theory (TDDFT) [115,116], First attempts have been done in order to calculate the chemicurrent created by an atom incident on a metal surface based on time-dependent density functional theory [117, 118]. In this approach, three independent steps are preformed. First, a conventional Kohn-Sham DFT calculation is performed in order to evaluate the ground state potential energy surface. Then, the resulting Kohn-Sham states are used in the framework of time-dependent DFT in order to obtain a position dependent friction coefficient. Finally, this friction coefficient is used in a forced oscillator model in which the probability density of electron-hole pair excitations caused by the classical motion of the incident atom is estimated. 

Thus this book describes the recent theories of chemical dynamics beyond the Born-Oppenheimer framework from a fundamental perspective of quantum wavepacket dynamics. To formulate these issues on a clear theoretical basis and to develop the novel theories beyond the Born-Oppenheimer approximation, however, we should first learn a basic classical and quantum nuclear dynamics on an adiabatic (the Born-Oppenheimer) potential energy surface. So we learn much from the classic theories of nonadiabatic transition such as the Landau-Zener theory and its variants. 

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