Born-Oppenheimer separation

The purpose of most quantum chemical methods is to solve the time-independent Schrodinger equation. Given that the nuclei are much more heavier than the electrons, the nuclear and electronic motions can generally be treated separately (Born-Oppenheimer approximation). Within this approximation, one has to solve the electronic Schrodinger equation. Because of the presence of electron repulsion terms, this equation cannot be solved exactly for molecules with more than one electron. 

If the wave functions of individual species are separable (Born-Oppenheimer approximation), and if there is a weak energy coupling between the system of long-lived, chemically reacting particles with other degrees of freedom, the total probability distribution function p(t, r, v, e) of the system can be separated ... 

Separation of Electronic and Nuclear Motion. Because, in general, electrons move with much greater velocities than nuclei, to a first approximation electron and nuclear motions can be separated (Born-Oppenheimer theorem [3]). The validity of this separation of electronic and nuclear motions provides the only real justification for the idea of a potential-energy curve of a molecule. The eigenfunction Y for the entire system of nuclei and electrons can be expressed as a product of two functions F< and T , where is an eigenfunction of the electronic coordinates found by solving Schrodinger s equation with the assumption that the nuclei are held fixed in space and Yn involves only the coordinates of the nuclei [4]. 

The fact that electrons instantly adjust to changes in nuclear positions due to the much greater masses of the nuclei allows the motions of electrons and nuclei to be separated (Born-Oppenheimer approximation). The electronic wave function depends on only the nuclear position, not on the nuclear momenta. The electronic Hamiltonian, He, in atomic units is given by... 

The first requirement is the definition of a low-dimensional space of reaction coordinates that still captures the essential dynamics of the processes we consider. Motions in the perpendicular null space should have irrelevant detail and equilibrate fast, preferably on a time scale that is separated from the time scale of the essential motions. Motions in the two spaces are separated much like is done in the Born-Oppenheimer approximation. The average influence of the fast motions on the essential degrees of freedom must be taken into account this concerns (i) correlations with positions expressed in a potential of mean force, (ii) correlations with velocities expressed in frictional terms, and iit) an uncorrelated remainder that can be modeled by stochastic terms. Of course, this scheme is the general idea behind the well-known Langevin and Brownian dynamics. 

In currently available software, the Hamiltonian above is nearly never used. The problem can be simplified by separating the nuclear and electron motions. This is called the Born-Oppenheimer approximation. The Hamiltonian for a molecule with stationary nuclei is... 

The first basic approximation of quantum chemistry is the Born-Oppenheimer Approximation (also referred to as the clamped-nuclei approximation). The Born-Oppenheimer Approximation is used to define and calculate potential energy surfaces. It uses the heavier mass of nuclei compared with electrons to separate the... 

The Born-Oppenheimer approximation is the first of several approximations used to simplify the solution of the Schradinger equation. It simplifies the general molecular problem by separating nuclear and electronic motions. This approximation is reasonable since the mass of a typical nucleus is thousands of times greater than that of an electron. The nuclei move very slowly with respect to the electrons, and the electrons react essentially instantaneously to changes in nuclear position. Thus, the electron distribution within a molecular system depends on the positions of the nuclei, and not on their velocities. Put another way, the nuclei look fixed to the electrons, and electronic motion can be described as occurring in a field of fixed nuclei. 

The concept of a potential energy surface has appeared in several chapters. Just to remind you, we make use of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation to separate the total (electron plus nuclear) wavefunction into a nuclear wavefunction and an electronic wavefunction. To calculate the electronic wavefunction, we regard the nuclei as being clamped in position. To calculate the nuclear wavefunction, we have to solve the relevant nuclear Schrddinger equation. The nuclei vibrate in the potential generated by the electrons. Don t confuse the nuclear Schrddinger equation (a quantum-mechanical treatment) with molecular mechanics (a classical treatment). 

Blood compatibility see Biocompatibility Born-Oppenheimer separation 180, 182 Branch points, labeled 164 Branches, in star polymers 162... 

Use of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation is implicit for any many-body problem involving electrons and nuclei as it allows us to separate electronic and nuclear coordinates in many-body wave function. Because of the large difference between electronic and ionic masses, the nuclei can be treated as an adiabatic background for instantaneous motion of electrons. So with this adiabatic approximation the many-body problem is reduced to the solution of the dynamics of the electrons in some frozen-in configuration of the nuclei. However, the total energy calculations are still impossible without making further simplifications and approximations. 

A second simplihcation results from introducing the Born-Oppenheimer separation of electronic and nuclear motions for convenience, the latter is most often considered to be classical. Each excited electronic state of the molecule can then be considered as a distinct molecular species, and the laser-excited system can be viewed as a mixture of them. The local structure of such a system is generally described in terms of atom-atom distribution functions t) [22, 24, 25]. These functions are proportional to the probability of Ending the nuclei p and v at the distance r at time t. Building this information into Eq. (4) and considering the isotropy of a liquid system simplifies the theory considerably. 

In the vibrational treatment we assumed, as usually done, that the Born-Oppenheimer separation is possible and that the electronic energy as a function of the internuclear variables can be taken as a potential in the equation of the internal motions of the nuclei. The vibrational anharmonic functions are obtained by means of a variational treatment in the basis of the harmonic solutions for the vibration considered (for more details about the theory see Pauzat et al [20]). 

The separation of the electronic and nuclear motions depends on the large difference between the mass of an electron and the mass of a nucleus. As the nuclei are much heavier, by a factor of at least 1800, they move much more slowly. Thus, to a good approximation the movement of the elections in a polyatomic molecule can be assumed to take place in the environment of the nuclei that are fixed in a particular configuration. This argument is the physical basis of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation. 

Another approach widely used for nonadiabatic reactions is the diabatic one. The channel Hamiltonians Hex and H determining the zeroth-order Born-Oppenheimer electron states of the donor A and acceptor B and the perturbations Vt and Vf leading to the forward and reverse electron transitions, respectively, are separated... 

First, we shall consider the model where the intermolecular vibrations A—B and intramolecular vibrations of the proton in the molecules AHZ,+1 and BHZ2+1 may be described in the harmonic approximation.48 In this case, using the Born-Oppenheimer approximation to separate the motion of the proton from the motion of the other atoms for the symmetric transition, Eq. (16) may be... 

Marcus uses the Born-Oppenheimer approximation to separate electronic and nuclear motions, the only exception being at S in the case of nonadiabatic reactions. Classical equilibrium statistical mechanics is used to calculate the probability of arriving at the activated complex only vibrational quantum effects are treated approximately. The result is... 

Separation of the wave functions describing the motion of nuclei and the wave function describing the electrons (Born-Oppenheimer approximation). This approximation is based on the fact that the nuclear particles are much heavier than the ele ctrons, and therefore much slower than the latter. In such a situation, the electronic wave function can be found at fixed positions of the nuclei. 

One branch of chemistry where the use of quantum mechanics is an absolute necessity is molecular spectroscopy. The topic is interaction between electromagnetic waves and molecular matter. The major assumption is that nuclear and electronic motion can effectively be separated according to the Born-Oppenheimer approximation, to be studied in more detail later on. The type of interaction depends on the wavelength, or frequency of the radiation which is commonly used to identify characteristic regions in the total spectrum, ranging from radio waves to 7-rays. 

For finite values of /n the system moves within a limited width, given by the fictitious electronic kinetic energy, above the Born-Oppenheimer surface. Adiabacity is ensured if the highest frequency of the nuclear motion separated from the lowest frequency associated with the fictitious motion of the electronic degrees of freedom cofm. It can be shown [30] that eo in is proportional to the gap Eg ... 

Each of the approaches is based on the premise that it makes sense to focus on the Born Oppenheimer potential for the OH stretch for fixed bath variables. Such a potential has vibrational eigenvalues, and for example h times the transition frequency of the fundamental is simply the difference between the first excited and ground state eigenvalues. Thus in essence this is an adiabatic approximation the assumption is that the vibrational chromophore is sufficiently fast compared to the bath coordinates. To the extent that the h times frequency of the chromophore is large compared to kT, and those of the bath are small compared to kT, this separation of time scales exists and so this should be a reasonable approximation. For water, as discussed earlier, some of the bath variables (librations) have frequencies somewhat larger than kT/h, and... 

Consider a stable diatomic molecule with nuclei denoted as A and B. The Born-Oppenheimer potential V for such a molecule will depend on the internuclear distance rAB and will typically have the form shown in Fig. 3.1. The potential energy has a minimum at r0, which is often referred to as the equilibrium internuclear distance. As the distance rAB increases, the potential V increases and finally reaches a limiting value where the molecule is now better described as two separated atoms (or depending on the electronic state of the system, two separated atomic species one or both of which may be ions). The difference in energy between the two separated atoms and the minimum of the potential is the dissociation energy De of the molecule. As the internuclear distance of the diatomic molecule is decreased... 

As pointed out in Chapter 2, nuclear motion takes place on the Born-Oppenheimer potential surface. The motion of the center of mass (corresponding to translation) rigorously separates from the other motions of the atoms. Translational motion may be subject to a potential corresponding to the fact that the molecule... 

The statement applies not only to chemical equilibrium but also to phase equilibrium. It is obviously true that it also applies to multiple substitutions. Classically isotopes cannot be separated (enriched or depleted) in one molecular species (or phase) from another species (or phase) by chemical equilibrium processes. Statements of this truth appeared clearly in the early chemical literature. The previously derived Equation 4.80 leads to exactly the same conclusion but that equation is limited to the case of an ideal gas in the rigid rotor harmonic oscillator approximation. The present conclusion about isotope effects in classical mechanics is stronger. It only requires the Born-Oppenheimer approximation. 

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