Schrodinger nuclear

The discussion in the previous sections assumed that the electron dynamics is adiabatic, i.e. the electronic wavefiinction follows the nuclear dynamics and at every nuclear configuration only the lowest energy (or more generally, for excited states, a single) electronic wavefiinction is relevant. This is the Bom-Oppenlieimer approxunation which allows the separation of nuclear and electronic coordinates in the Schrodinger equation. 

As noted some time ago, the NACTs, can be incorporated in the nuclear part of the Schrodinger equation as a vector potential [74,75]. The question of a... 

The mixed, v t — % notation here has historic causes.) The Schrodinger equation is obtained from the nuclear Lagrangean by functionally deriving the latter with respect to t /. To get the exact form of the Schrodinger equation, we must let N in Eq. (95) to be equal to the dimension of the electronic Hilbert space (viz., 00), but we shall soon come to study approximations in which N is finite and even small (e.g., 2 or 3). The appropriate nuclear Lagrangean density is for an arbitrary electronic states... 

Let us define x (R>.) as an n-dimensional nuclear motion column vector, whose components are Xi (R i) through X (R )- The n-electronic-state nuclear motion Schrodinger equation satisfied by (Rl) can be obtained by inserting Eqs. (12)... 

This makes it desirable to define other representations in addition to the electronically adiabatic one [Eqs. (9)-(12)], in which the adiabatic electronic wave function basis set used in the Bom-Huang expansion (12) is replaced by another basis set of functions of the electronic coordinates. Such a different electronic basis set can be chosen so as to minimize the above mentioned gradient term. This term can initially be neglected in the solution of the / -electionic-state nuclear motion Schrodinger equation and reintroduced later using perturbative or other methods, if desired. This new basis set of electronic wave functions can also be made to depend parametrically, like their adiabatic counterparts, on the internal nuclear coordinates q that were defined after Eq. (8). This new electronic basis set is henceforth refened to as diabatic and, as is obvious, leads to an electronically diabatic representation that is not unique unlike the adiabatic one, which is unique by definition. 

U(qJ is referred to as an adiabatic-to-diabatic transformation (ADT) matrix. Its mathematical sbucture is discussed in detail in Section in.C. If the electronic wave functions in the adiabatic and diabatic representations are chosen to be real, as is normally the case, U(q ) is orthogonal and therefore has n n — l)/2 independent elements (or degrees of freedom). This transformation mabix U(qO can be chosen so as to yield a diabatic electronic basis set with desired properties, which can then be used to derive the diabatic nuclear motion Schrodinger equation. By using Eqs. (27) and (28) and the orthonormality of the diabatic and adiabatic electronic basis sets, we can relate the adiabatic and diabatic nuclear wave functions through the same n-dimensional unitary transformation matrix U(qx) according to... 

This can be used to rewrite the diabatic nuclear motion Schrodinger equation for an incomplete set of n electronic states as... 

In the two-adiabatic-electronic-state Bom-Huang description of the total orbital wave function, we wish to solve the corresponding nuclear motion Schrodinger equation in the diabatic representation... 

In Section II, molecular dynamics within the BO approximation was introduced. As shown in Appendix A, the full nuclear Schrodinger equation is, however. 

The familiar BO approximation is obtained by ignoring the operators A completely. This results in the picture of the nuclei moving over the PES provided by the electrons, which are moving so as to instantaneously follow the nuclear motion. Another common level of approximation is to exclude the off-diagonal elements of this operator matrix. This is known as the Bom-Huang, or simply the adiabatic, approximation (see [250] for further details of the possible approximations and nomenclature associated with the nuclear Schrodinger equation). 

By using this expression for G, it is possible to write the nuclear Schrodinger equation (A.8) in matrix form [54,179] as... 

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