Self-consistent wavefunctions, molecular

In view of the preceding considerations it should be emphasized that it is incorrect to talk about the self-consistent-field molecular orbitals of a molecular system in the Hartree-Fock approximation. The correct point of view is to associate the molecular orbital wavefunction of Eq. (1) with the N-dimen-sional linear Hilbert space spanned by the orbitals t/2,... uN any set of N linearly independent functions in this space can be used as molecular orbitals for forming the antisymmetrized product. 

R. S. Mulliken, J. Chem. Phys., 36, 3428 (1962). Criteria for the Construction of Good Self-Consistent-Field Molecular Orbital Wavefunctions and the Significance of LCAO-MO Population Analysis. 

What has been said applies to approximate as well as to ab-initio molecular orbital wavefunctions,i.e. those obtained by solving the self-consistent-field equations exactly. Hence, the localized orbital approach also offers an attractive tool for bridging the gap between rigorous quantitative calculations and qualitative chemical intuition. The experience gained so far has shown that interpretations suggested by the localized orbital picture correspond closely to intuitive chemical thinking. 

However, despite their proven explanatory and predictive capabilities, all well-known MO models for the mechanisms of pericyclic reactions, including the Woodward-Hoffmann rules [1,2], Fukui s frontier orbital theory [3] and the Dewar-Zimmerman treatment [4-6] share an inherent limitation They are based on nothing more than the simplest MO wavefunction, in the form of a single Slater determinant, often under the additional oversimplifying assumptions characteristic of the Hiickel molecular orbital (HMO) approach. It is now well established that the accurate description of the potential surface for a pericyclic reaction requires a much more complicated ab initio wavefunction, of a quality comparable to, or even better than, that of an appropriate complete-active-space self-consistent field (CASSCF) expansion. A wavefunction of this type typically involves a large number of configurations built from orthogonal orbitals, the most important of which i.e. those in the active space) have fractional occupation numbers. Its complexity renders the re-introduction of qualitative ideas similar to the Woodward-Hoffmann rules virtually impossible. 

Values of the MacLaurin coefficients computed from good, self-consistent-field wavefunctions have been reported [355] for 125 linear molecules and molecular ions. Only type I and II momentum densities were found for these molecules, and they corresponded to negative and positive values of IIq(O), respectively. An analysis in terms of molecular orbital contributions was made, and periodic trends were examined [355]. The qualitative results of that work [355] are correct but recent, purely numerical, Hartree-Fock calculations [356] for 78 diatomic molecules have demonstrated that the highly regarded wavefunctions of Cade, Huo, and Wahl [357-359] are not accurate for IIo(O) and especially IIo(O). These problems can be traced to a lack of sufficiently diffuse functions in their large basis sets of Slater-type functions. 

For the benzenoid aromatic molecules considered here, we wish to include electron correlation for the N electrons of the 7t-eleetron system but not for the 2n a electrons. This is achieved most readily if we first carry out a standard Hartree-Fock MO theory calculation, yielding a set of orthogonal self-consistent field (SCF) molecular orbitals tp(. The spin-coupled wavefunction may then be written... 

The scientific interests of Huzinaga are numerous. He initially worked in the area of solid-state theory. Soon, however, he became interested in the electronic structure of molecules. He studied the one-center expansion of the molecular wavefunction, developed a formalism for the evaluation of atomic and molecular electron repulsion integrals, expanded Roothaan s self-consistent field theory for open-shell systems, and, building on his own work on the separability of many-electron systems, designed a valence electron method for computational studies on large molecules. 

Our present focus is on correlated electronic structure methods for describing molecular systems interacting with a structured environment where the electronic wavefunction for the molecule is given by a multiconfigurational self-consistent field wavefunction. Using the MCSCF structured environment response method it is possible to determine molecular properties such as (i) frequency-dependent polarizabilities, (ii) excitation and deexcitation energies, (iii) transition moments, (iv) two-photon matrix elements, (v) frequency-dependent first hyperpolarizability tensors, (vi) frequency-dependent polarizabilities of excited states, (vii) frequency-dependent second hyperpolarizabilities (y), (viii) three-photon absorptions, and (ix) two-photon absorption between excited states. 

The Vienna Ab Initio Simulation Package (VASP) program33,34 was developed to carry out calculations to obtain the fluctuation trajectory of the selected models. The VASP program uses a rather traditional self-consistency scheme to evaluate the instantaneous electronic ground-state at each molecular dynamics (MD) step so that the wavefunction can be converged to the Born-Oppenheimer surface at each time-step. 

More recently, an all valence electron, semiempirical molecular orbital theory known as the Complete Neglect of Differential Overlap (CNDO) has been proposed by Pople based on self-consistent field (SCF) formalism (5). Although this method uses a more sophisticated approximation of the wavefunction, it neglects differential overlap. 

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