Relativistic Darwin operator

The first two terms, the mass-velocity and the Darwin operators, are called scalar relativistic terms since they do not involve the electron spin. They are given by... 

Historically, the first derivations of approximate relativistic operators of value in molecular science have become known as the Pauli approximation. Still, the best-known operators to capture relativistic corrections originate from those developments which provided well-known operators such as the spin-orbit or the mass-velocity or the Darwin operators. Not all of these operators are variationally stable, and therefore they can only be employed within the framework of perturbation theory. Nowadays, these difficulties have been overcome by, for instance, the Douglas-Kroll-Hess hierarchy of approximate Hamiltonians and the regular approximations to be introduced in a later section, so that operators such as the mass-velocity and Darwin terms are no... 

The mass-velocity term is therefore the lowest-order term from the relativistic Hamiltonian that comes from the variation of the mass with the velocity. The second relativistic term in the Pauli Hamiltonian is called the Darwin operator, and has no classical analogue. Due to the presence of the Dirac delta function, the only contributions for an atom come from s functions. The third term is the spin-orbit term, resulting from the interaction of the spin of the electron with its orbital angular momentum around the nucleus. This operator is identical to the spin-orbit operator of the modified Dirac equation. 

The lowest-order effect of relativity on energetics of atoms and molecules—and hence usually the largest—is the spin-free relativistic effect (also called scalar relativity), which is dominated by the one-electron relativistic effect. For light atoms, this effect is relatively easily evaluated with the mass-velocity and Darwin operators of the Pauli Hamiltonian, or by direct perturbation theory. For heavier atoms, the Douglas-Kroll-Hess method or the NESC le method provide descriptions of the spin-independent relativistic effect that are satisfactory for all but the highest accuracy. 

From the form of the mass-velocity and Darwin operators, it is clear that the largest contributions to the direct scalar relativistic effect come from s electrons. Consequently, sa bonds should be strengthened by relativity. The coinage metals have valence configurations and we would expect compounds of these elements to exhibit such effects in their bonding properties. Table 22.3 shows the bond lengths, harmonic... 

NR - nonrelativistic, PT-MVD - pCTturbative treatment of mass-velocity and Darwin operators (only SCF), DKH - Douglas-Kroll-Hess, RECP — relativistic effective core potential, DC - four-component Dirac-Coulomb, Exp - experiment. 

Numerous molecular properties which describe nonlinear effects, such as the Kerr effect (O section Second Dipole HyperpolarizabUity ) or magnetic circular dichroism (O section Magnetic Circular Dichroism ), arising in the presence of radiation and additional electric or magnetic fields, are interpreted as derivatives of the dipole polarizability (Michl and Thul-strup 1995). They can be calculated as higher-order response functions. Similarly, relativistic corrections to the polarizabilities for heavy atoms can be estimated from higher-order response functions including the mass-velocity and Darwin operators, O Eqs. 11.9 and O 11.20, as additional perturbations (Kirpekar et al. 1995). 

There are other first-order relativistic corrections to the Hamiltonian operator. From Exercise 2.2, we recall the two-electron Darwin operator and the spin-spin contact operator ... 

In addition, there exists a two-electron operator that couples the spins of the electrons in a dipolar fashion as well as an operator that couples their oibital angular momenta. In general, the two-electron relativistic operators are less important than the one-electron mass-velocity and Darwin operators. For the neon atom, for example, we obtain the following first-order one- and two-electron corrections in the cc-pVDZ basis using a valence-electron FCI wave function ... 

Perhaps the simplest and most cost-effective way of treating relativistic contributions in an all-electron framework is the first-order perturbation theory of the one-electron Darwin and mass-velocity operators [46, 47]. For variational wavefunctions, these contributions can be evaluated very efficiently as expectation values of one-electron operators. 

It comprises the non-relativistic Hamiltonian of the form pf/2me + V and the relativistic correction terms, such as the mass-velocity operator —pf/8m c2, the Darwin term proportional to Pi E and the spin-orbit coupling term proportional... 

In M0ller-Plesset theory, first-order perturbation theory does not improve on the HF energy because the zeroth-order Hamiltonian is not itself the HF Hamiltonian. However, first-order perturbation theory can be useful for estimating energetic effects associated with operators that extend the HF Hamiltonian. Typical examples of such terms include the mass-velocity and one-electron Darwin corrections that arise in relativistic quantum mechanics. It is fairly difficult to self-consistently optimize wavefunctions for systems where these tenns are explicitly included in the Hamiltonian, but an estimate of their energetic contributions may be had from simple first-order perturbation theory, since that energy is computed simply by taking the expectation values of the operators over the much more easily obtained HF wave functions. 

Another method, devised by Cohen et al. to determine oxygen-rate gas collision parameters is to define an effective spin-orbit operator that includes r dependence, Zeff/r3, where the value of Zeff is adjusted to match experimental data (76). Langhoff has compared this technique with all-electron calculations using the full microscopic spin-orbit Hamiltonian for the rare-gas-oxide potential curves and found very good agreement (77). This operator has also been employed in REP calculations on Si (73), UF6 (78), U02+ and Th02 (79), and UF5 (80). The REPs employed in these calculations are based on Cowen-Griffin atomic orbitals, which include the relativistic mass-velocity and Darwin effects but do not include spin-orbit effects. Wadt (73), has made comparisons with calculations on Si by Stevens and Krauss (81), who employed the ab initio REP-based spin-orbit operator of Ermler et al. (35). 

Spin-orbit (SO) coupling corrections were calculated for the Pt atom since the relativistic effects are essential for species containing heavy elements. Other scalar relativistic corrections like the Darwin and mass-velocity terms are supposed to be implicitly included in (quasi)relativistic pseudopotentials because they mostly affect the core region of the considered heavy element. Their secondary influence can be seen in the contraction of the outer s-orbitals and the expansion of the d-orbitals. This is considered in the construction of the pseudoorbitals. The effective SO operator can be written within pseudopotential (PS) treatment in the form71 75... 

The non-relativistic PolMe (9) and quasirelativistic NpPolMe (10) basis sets were used in calculations reported in this paper. The size of the [uncontractd/contracted] sets for B, Cu, Ag, and Au is [10.6.4./5.3.2], [16.12.6.4/9.7.3.2], [19.15.9.4/11.9.5.2], and [21.17.11.9/13.11.7.4], respectively. The PolMe basis sets were systematically generated for use in non-relativistic SCF and correlated calculations of electric properties (10, 21). They also proved to be successful in calculations of IP s and EA s (8, 22). Nonrelativistic PolMe basis sets can be used in quasirelativistic calculations in which the Mass-Velocity and Darwin (MVD) terms are considered (23). This follows from the fact that in the MVD approximation one uses the approximate relativistic hamiltonian as an external perturbation with the nonrelativistic wave function as a reference. At the SCF and CASSCF levels one can obtain the MVD quasi-relativistic correction as an expectation value of the MVD operator. In perturbative CASPT2 and CC methods one needs to use the MVD operator as an external perturbation either within the finite field approach or by the analytical derivative schems. The first approach leads to certain numerical accuracy problems. 

The method works as follows. The mass velocity, Darwin and spin-orbit coupling operators are applied as a perturbation on the non-relativistic molecular wave-functions. The redistribution of charge is then used to compute revised Coulomb and exchange potentials. The corrections to the non-relativistic potentials are then included as part of the relativistic perturbation. This correction is split into a core correction, and a valence electron correction. The former is taken from atomic calculations, and a frozen core approximation is applied, while the latter is determined self-consistently. In this way the valence electrons are subject to the direct influence of the relativistic Hamiltonian and the indirect effects arising from the potential correction terms, which of course mainly arise from the core contraction. 

The attempt to correct the non-relativistic Schrodinger equation in an approximate way for relativistic effects leads to the appearance of an one-electron operator, known as electron-nucleus Darwin term [109],... 

This method was then applied to the hydrogen halides in order to estimate relativistic contributions to the EFG. The mass-velocity and Darwin terms were hereby employed as relativistic operators in combination with a many-body correlation treatment. From the results in... 

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