Quantum-classical Liouville method

Abstract. In this chapter we discuss approaches to solving quantum dynamics in the condensed phase based on the quantum-classical Liouville method. Several representations of the quantum-classical Liouville equation (QCLE) of motion have been investigated and subsequently simulated. We discuss the benefits and limitations of these approaches. By making further approximations to the QCLE, we show that standard approaches to this problem, i.e., mean-field and surface-hopping methods, can be derived. The computation of transport coefficients, such as chemical rate constants, represent an important class of problems where the QCL method is applicable. We present a general quantum-classical expression for a time-dependent transport coefficient which incorporates the full system s initial quantum equilibrium structure. As an example of the formalism, the computation of a reaction rate coefficient for a simple reactive model is presented. These results are compared to illuminate the similarities and differences between various approaches discussed in this chapter. 

We show how the quantum-classical evolution equations of motion can be obtained as an approximation to the full quantum evolution and point out some of the difficulties that arise because of the lack of a Lie algebraic structure. The computation of transport properties is discussed from two different perspectives. Transport coefficient formulas may be derived by starting from an approximate quantum-classical description of the system. Alternatively, the exact quantum transport coefficients may be taken as the starting point of the computation with quantum-classical approximations made only to the dynamics while retaining the full quantum equilibrium structure. The utility of quantum-classical Liouville methods is illustrated by considering the computation of the rate constants of quantum chemical reactions in the condensed phase. 

The goal of this chapter is twofold. First we wish to critically compare—from both a conceptional and a practical point of view—various classical and mixed quantum-classical strategies to describe non-Born-Oppenheimer dynamics. To this end. Section II introduces five multidimensional model problems, each representing a specific challenge for a classical description. Allowing for exact quantum-mechanical reference calculations, aU models have been used as benchmark problems to study approximate descriptions. In what follows, Section III describes in some detail the mean-field trajectory method and also discusses its connection to time-dependent self-consistent-field schemes. The surface-hopping method is considered in Section IV, which discusses various motivations of the ansatz as well as several variants of the implementation. Section V gives a brief account on the quantum-classical Liouville description and considers the possibility of an exact stochastic realization of its equation of motion. 

The chapter is organized as follows The quantum-classical Liouville dynamics scheme is first outlined and a rigorous surface hopping trajectory algorithm for its implementation is presented. The iterative linearized density matrix propagation approach is then described and an approach for its implementation is presented. In the Model Simulations section the comparable performance of the two methods is documented for the generalized spin-boson model and numerical convergence issues are mentioned. In the Conclusions we review the perspectives of this study. 

Variations on this surface hopping method that utilize Pechukas [106] formulation of mixed quantum-classical dynamics have been proposed [107,108]. Surface hopping algorithms [109-111] for non-adiabatic dynamics based on the quantum-classical Liouville equation [109,111-113] have been formulated. In these schemes the dynamics is fully prescribed by the quantum-classical Liouville operator and no additional assumptions about the nature of the classical evolution or the quantum transition probabilities are made. Quantum dynamics of condensed phase systems has also been carried out using techniques that are not based on surface hopping algorithms, in particular, centroid path integral dynamics [114] and influence functional methods [115]. 

As explained in the Introduction, one needs to distinguish the following kinds of surface hopping (SH) methods (i) Semiclassical theories based on a connection ansatz of the WKB wave function, " (ii) stochastic implementations of a given deterministic multistate differential equation, e.g. the quantum-classical Liouville equation, and (iii) quasiclassical models such as the well-known SH schemes of Tully and others. " In this chapter, we focus on the latter type of SH method, which has turned out to be the most popular approach to describe nonadiabatic dynamics at conical intersections. 

At present the practical applicability of the quantum-classical Liouville description and the semiclassical version of the mapping approach is limited because of the dynamical sign problem. As both methods have been proposed only in the last few years, however, they still hold a great potential for improvement. Finally it is noted that all methods considered in this review can in principle be interfaced with an on-the fly ah initio... 

In the following sections we show how the quantum-classical Liouville equation and quantum-classical expressions for reaction rates can be deduced from the full quantum expressions. The formalism is then applied to the investigation of nonadiabatic proton transfer reactions in condensed phase polar solvents. A quantum-classical Liouville-based method for calculating linear and nonlinear vibrational spectra is then described, which involves nonequilibrium dynamics on multiple adiabatic potential energy surfaces. This method is then used to investigate the linear and third-order vibrational spectroscopy of a proton stretching mode in a solvated hydrogen-bonded complex. 

The conceptual framework for the - semiclassical simulation of ultrafast spectroscopic observables is provided by the Wigner representation of quantum mechanics [2, 3]. Specifically, for the ultrafast pump-probe spectroscopy using classical trajectories, methods based on the semiclassical limit of the Liouville-von Neumann equation for the time evolution of the vibronic density matrix have been developed [4-8]. Our approach [4,6-8] is related to the Liouville space theory of nonlinear spectroscopy developed by Mukamel et al. [9]. It is characterized by the ability to approximately describe quantum phenomena such as optical transitions by averaging over the ensemble of classical trajectories. Moreover, quantum corrections for the nuclear dynamics can be introduced in a systematic manner, e.g. in the framework of the entangled trajectory method [10,11]. Alternatively, these effects can be also accounted for in the framework of the multiple spawning method [12]. In general, trajectory-based methods require drastically less computational effort than full quantum mechanical calculations and provide physical insight in ultrafast processes. Additionally, they can be combined directly with quantum chemistry methods for the electronic structure calculations. 

The detailed-balance corrected quantum-classical method described in section 8.2 is capable of giving this surface temperature dependence [62]. More rigorous methods involve the solution of the Liouville-von Neumann equation [159]. However, this appears to be close to impossible for systems involving the number of atoms and processes of interest for molecule-surface scattering [160]. At least this is so unless approximations are introduced, for instance, combining classical and quantum mechanical treatments or self-consistent field approximations [161]. 

The crisis of the GME method is closely related to the crisis in the density matrix approach to wave-function collapse. We shall see that in the Poisson case the processes making the statistical density matrix become diagonal in the basis set of the measured variable and can be safely interpreted as generators of wave function collapse, thereby justifying the widely accepted conviction that quantum mechanics does not need either correction or generalization. In the non-Poisson case, this equivalence is lost, and, while the CTRW perspective yields correct results, no theoretical tool, based on density, exists yet to make the time evolution of a contracted Liouville equation, classical or quantum, reproduce them. 

Section III is devoted to illustrating the first theoretical tool under discussion in this review, the GME derived from the Liouville equation, classical or quantum, through the contraction over the irrelevant degrees of freedom. In Section III.A we illustrate Zwanzig s projection method. Then, in Section III.B, we show how to use this method to derive a GME from Anderson s tight binding Hamiltonian The second-order approximation yields the Pauli master equation. This proves that the adoption of GME derived from a Hamiltonian picture requires, in principle, an infinite-order treatment. The case of a vanishing diffusion coefficient must be considered as a case of anomalous diffusion, and the second-order treatment is compatible only with the condition of ordinary... 

Both for classical and quantum physics, elimination of interaction means existence of a unitary operator, which we call f/. We have shown that this operator U may be expressed in terms of the kinetic operators that I quoted above. Therefore our dynamics of correlation is equivalent to the various methods to obtain diagonalization of the Hamiltonian. In this case we also have the diagonalization of the Liouville operator for the density matrix. In short, Poincare integrability is equivalent to the integrability of the Liouville equation. But there is a much more interesting case, as there exists a class of non-integrable... 

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