Second Derivatives of the Energy

In this section, we want to derive expressions for the second derivatives of the energy with respect to two components Pq. and P. .. of the general electromagnetic field without relying on perturbation theory. According to the Hellmann-Feynman theorem, Eq. (3.7), the second derivative of the energy is equal to the first derivative of the expectation value of the derivative of the Hamiltonian for a non-zero value of the field, P 0, i.e. 

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Cartesian coordinates, the vector x will have 3N components and x t corresponds to the current configuration of fhe system. SC (xj.) is a 3N x 1 matrix (i.e. a vector), each element of which is the partial derivative of f with respect to the appropriate coordinate, d"Vjdxi. We will also write the gradient at the point k as gj.. Each element (i,j) of fhe matrix " "(xj.) is the partial second derivative of the energy function with respect to the two coordinates r and Xj, JdXidXj. is thus of dimension 3N x 3N and is... 

A drawback of the SCRF method is its use of a spherical cavity molecules are rarely exac spherical in shape. However, a spherical representation can be a reasonable first apprc mation to the shape of many molecules. It is also possible to use an ellipsoidal cavity t may be a more appropriate shape for some molecules. For both the spherical and ellipsoi cavities analytical expressions for the first and second derivatives of the energy can derived, so enabling geometry optimisations to be performed efficiently. For these cavil it is necessary to define their size. In the case of a spherical cavity a value for the rad can be calculated from the molecular volume ... 

A vibrations calculation is the first step of a vibrational analysis. It involves the time consuming step of evaluating the Hessian matrix (the second derivatives of the energy with respect to atomic Cartesian coordinates) and diagonalizing it to determine normal modes and harmonic frequencies. For the SCFmethods the Hessian matrix is evaluated by finite difference of analytic gradients, so the time required quickly grows with system size. 

If a surface is quadratic it can be characterized by its Hessian matrix A of second derivatives of the energy with respect to the Cartesian... 

Once the 3D strucmre of a molecule and all the parameters required for the atomic and molecular connectivities are known, the energy of the system can be calculated via Eqs. (l)-(3). First derivatives of the energy with respect to position allow for determination of the forces acting on the atoms, information that is used in the energy minimization (see Chapter 4) or MD simulations (see Chapter 3). Second derivatives of the energy with respect to position can be used to calculate force constants acting on atoms, allowing the determination of vibrational spectra via nonnal mode analysis (see Chapter 8). 

Computing the vibrational frequencies of molecules resulting from interatomic motion within the molecule. Frequencies depend on the second derivative of the energy with respect to atomic structure, and frequency calculations may also predict other properties which depend on second derivatives. Frequency calculations are not possible or practical for all computational chemistry methods. 

Another way of obtaining information about the distribution of electrons is by computing the polarizability. This property depends on the second derivative of the energy with respect to an electric field. We ll examine the polarizability of formaldehyde in Chapter 4. 

Most optimization algorithms also estimate or compute the value of the second derivative of the energy with respect to the molecular coordinates, updating the matrix of force constants (known as the Hessian). These force constants specify the curvature of the surface at that point, which provides additional information useful for determining the next step. 

Molecular frequencies depend on the second derivative of the energy with respect to the nuclear positions. Analytic second derivatives are available for the Hartree-Fock (HF keyword). Density Functional Theory (primarily the B3LYP keyword in this book), second-order Moller-Plesset (MP2 keyword) and CASSCF (CASSCF keyword) theoretical procedures. Numeric second derivatives—which are much more time consuming—are available for other methods. 

Chapter 4, Frequency Calculations, discusses computing the second derivatives of the energy and using it to predict IR and Raman frequencies and intensities and vibrational normal modes. It also considers other uses... 

The first and second derivatives of the energy with respect to the X variables ( 0) and "(O)) can be written in term of Fock matrix elements and two-electron integrals in the MO basis. For an RHF type wave function these are given as... 

The second derivative of the energy with respect to a geometry change can be written as... 

The second derivative of the energy with respect to the number of electrons is the hardness r) (the inverse quantity is called the softness), which again may be approximated in term of the ionization potential and electron affinity. 

A few comments on the layout of the book. Definitions or common phrases are marked in italic, these can be found in the index. Underline is used for emphasizing important points. Operators, vectors and matrices are denoted in bold, scalars in normal text. Although I have tried to keep the notation as consistent as possible, different branches in computational chemistry often use different symbols for the same quantity. In order to comply with common usage, I have elected sometimes to switch notation between chapters. The second derivative of the energy, for example, is called the force constant k in force field theory, the corresponding matrix is denoted F when discussing vibrations, and called the Hessian H for optimization purposes. 

The variational theorem which has been initially proved in 1907 (24), before the birthday of the Quantum Mechanics, has given rise to a method widely employed in Qnantnm calculations. The finite-field method, developed by Cohen andRoothan (25), is coimected to this method. The Stark Hamiltonian —fi.S explicitly appears in the Fock monoelectronic operator. The polarizability is derived from the second derivative of the energy with respect to the electric field. The finite-field method has been developed at the SCF and Cl levels but the difficulty of such a method is the well known loss in the numerical precision in the limit of small or strong fields. The latter case poses several interconnected problems in the calculation of polarizability at a given order, n ... 

The intensities of Raman scattering depend on the square of the infinitesimal change of the polarizability a with respect to the normal coordinates, q. Since the polarizability itself is already the second derivative of the energy with respect to the electric field - see equa-... 

With quantum-mechanical methods, the second derivatives of the energy could be used directly for the FF and atomic polar tensors (APT) for the dipole derivatives. Both are standardly computed in most quantum-chemistry programs but for accurate results, moderately large basis sets and/or some accommodation for correlation interaction is needed. Until recently, this has restricted most ab initio studies to modest-sized molecules. 

In the first, quantum mechanics can be used to calculate the NMR coupling constant between two nuclear spins in the molecular environment or the NMR shielding constant. Jensen [8] in Chapter 10 of the reference provides a comprehensive introduction to the methods for calculating these molecular properties. The NMR coupling constant, KAB, is related to the second derivative of the energy with respect to the internal magnetic moments, /u, arising from the nuclear spin of the two atoms, A and B. 

The shielding constant, crA, is related to a mixed second derivative of the energy with respect to an internal magnetic nuclear moment due to spin, and external magnetic field, Bext. 

There is another important feature to note in the curve of Figure 10.1, the second derivative of the energy with respect to Ns is discontinuous at the ground state multiplicity and must be negative in both directions, due to the fact that both branches in the plot have negative curvatures. This second derivative, as in the... 

The SP-DFT has been shown to be useful in the better understanding of chemical reactivity, however there is still work to be done. The usefulness of the reactivity indexes in the p-, p representation has not been received much attention but it is worth to explore them in more detail. Along this line, the new experiments where it is able to separate spin-up and spin-down electrons may be an open field in the applications of the theory with this variable set. Another issue to develop in this context is to define response functions of the system associated to first and second derivatives of the energy functional defined by Equation 10.1. But the challenge in this case would be to find the physical meaning of such quantities rather than build the mathematical framework because this is due to the linear dependence on the four-current and external potential. 

Equation 24.14 provides an alternative definition of the electronic responses they are derivatives of the energy s relative to the field E. Note that the response of order n, the nth derivative of the response to the perturbation, is the n + 1th derivative of the energy relative to the same perturbation. Hence, the linear response a t is a second derivative of the energy. Because the potential (E) and the density (p) are uniquely related to each other, the field can be formulated as a function of the dipole moment p. The expansion of the field in function of p can be obtained from Equation 24.12 which can be easily inverted to give... 

Parr and Pearson have introduced the absolute hardness as the second derivative of the energy EA with respect to the number of electrons NA at constant external potential [18]... 

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