Potential energy surfaces principles

State I ) m the electronic ground state. In principle, other possibilities may also be conceived for the preparation step, as discussed in section A3.13.1, section A3.13.2 and section A3.13.3. In order to detemiine superposition coefficients within a realistic experimental set-up using irradiation, the following questions need to be answered (1) Wliat are the eigenstates (2) What are the electric dipole transition matrix elements (3) What is the orientation of the molecule with respect to the laboratory fixed (Imearly or circularly) polarized electric field vector of the radiation The first question requires knowledge of the potential energy surface, or... 

In principle, energy landscapes are characterized by their local minima, which correspond to locally stable confonnations, and by the transition regions (barriers) that connect the minima. In small systems, which have only a few minima, it is possible to use a direct approach to identify all the local minima and thus to describe the entire potential energy surface. Such is the case for small reactive systems [9] and for the alanine dipeptide, which has only two significant degrees of freedom [50,51]. The direct approach becomes impractical, however, for larger systems with many degrees of freedom that are characterized by a multitude of local minima. 

Equation (47) shows that in the Condon approximation the probabilities of forward and reverse transitions satisfy the detailed balance principle since the point q corresponds to the intersection of the potential energy surfaces (and free energy surfaces) where Haa = Hbb. Therefore, at the point q we have... 

An EHT potential energy surface was calculated for the reactions summarized in Fig. 17c (27). Variation of x provides the driving force of the reaction, since this parameter describes the swinging motion of the migrating group. In principle, this angle could assume... 

Before we do this, though, we point out that for a simple diatomic molecule, assuming ideal conditions, one can in principle calculate the rate of the uni-molecular process. This is so because the lower excited states of the ion are (relatively) few and well separated. If the potential curves are then given, the value of the rate can be provided. For a polyatomic molecule, two great complications immediately arise (1) the number of lower excited states increases tremendously and (2) multidimensional potential energy surfaces make trajectory calculations intractable. 

The third principle relates to the set of equations which describe the potential energy surface of the molecule. These potential energy equations, derived primarily from classical physics, contain parameters optimized to obtain the best match between experimental data and/or theoretical results for a training set of compounds. Once the parameters are evaluated for a set of structures (as diverse as possible), they are fixed and then used unmodified for other similar (and usually larger) compounds. As a first approximation, these parameters must be transferable from one structure to another for this method to work and be generally applicable. 

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