Spin function, permutational symmetry

Spin-degenerate systems, geometric phase theory, conical intersections, 6-8 Spin function, permutational symmetry, group theoretical properties,... 

It has been demonstrated that a given electronic configuration can yield several space- and spin- adapted determinental wavefunctions such functions are referred to as configuration state functions (CSFs). These CSF wavefunctions are not the exact eigenfunctions of the many-electron Hamiltonian, H they are simply functions which possess the space, spin, and permutational symmetry of the exact eigenstates. As such, they comprise an acceptable set of functions to use in, for example, a linear variational treatment of the true states. 

We mentioned earlier that the dimensionality of the FCI space is significantly reduced due to spin symmetry. This can be formulated somewhat differently due to the relation existing between the spin and permutation symmetries of the many-electronic wave functions (see [30,42]). Indeed, the wave function of two electrons in two orbitals a and b allows for six different Slater determinants... 

The presence of spin in the trial function does not modify the previous point group symmetry discussion. However the requirements of spin and permutational symmetry may mean that a trial function is constrained so that it might not be possible to have a trial function with a particular point group symmetry and a specified spin symmetry. As an example consider a determinant of doubly occupied orbitals for four electrons symbolized as... 

IT. Total Molecular Wave Functdon TIT. Group Theoretical Considerations TV. Permutational Symmetry of Total Wave Function V. Permutational Symmetry of Nuclear Spin Function VT. Permutational Symmetry of Electronic Wave Function VIT. Permutational Symmetry of Rovibronic and Vibronic Wave Functions VIIT. Permutational Symmetry of Rotational Wave Function IX. Permutational Symmetry of Vibrational Wave Function X. Case Studies Lis and Other Systems... 

As pointed out in the previous paragraph, the total wave function of a molecule consists of an electronic and a nuclear parts. The electrons have a different intrinsic nature from nuclei, and hence can be treated separately when one considers the issue of permutational symmetry. First, let us consider the case of electrons. These are fermions with spin and hence the subsystem of electrons obeys the Fermi-Dirac statistics the total electronic wave function... 

Since the total wave function must have the correct symmetry under the permutation of identical nuclei, we can determine the symmetiy of the rovi-bronic wave function from consideration of the corresponding symmetry of the nuclear spin function. We begin by looking at the case of a fermionic system for which the total wave function must be antisynmiebic under permutation of any two identical particles. If the nuclear spin function is symmetric then the rovibronic wave function must be antisymmetric conversely, if the nuclear spin function is antisymmebic, the rovibronic wave function must be symmetric under permutation of any two fermions. Similar considerations apply to bosonic systems The rovibronic wave function must be symmetric when the nuclear spin function is symmetric, and the rovibronic wave function must be antisymmetiic when the nuclear spin function is antisymmetric. This warrants... 

The permutational symmetry of the rotational wave function is determined by the rotational angular momentum J, which is the resultant of the electronic spin S, elecbonic orbital L, and nuclear orbital N angular momenta. We will now examine the permutational symmetry of the rotational wave functions. Two important remarks should first be made. The first refers to the 7 = 0 rotational... 

However, drastic consequences may arise if the nuclear spin is 0 or In these cases, some rovibronic states cannot be observed since they are symmetry forbidden. For example, in the case of C 02, the nuclei are spinless and the nuclear spin function is symmetric under permutation of the oxygen nuclei. Since the ground electronic state is only even values of J exist for the ground vibrational level (vj, V3) = (OO O), where (vi,V2,V3) are the... 

In this chapter, we discussed the permutational symmetry properties of the total molecular wave function and its various components under the exchange of identical particles. We started by noting that most nuclear dynamics treatments carried out so far neglect the interactions between the nuclear spin and the other nuclear and electronic degrees of freedom in the system Hamiltonian. Due to... 

The notation < i j k 1> introduced above gives the two-electron integrals for the g(r,r ) operator in the so-called Dirac notation, in which the i and k indices label the spin-orbitals that refer to the coordinates r and the j and 1 indices label the spin-orbitals referring to coordinates r. The r and r denote r,0,( ),a and r, 0, ( ), a (with a and a being the a or P spin functions). The fact that r and r are integrated and hence represent dummy variables introduces index permutational symmetry into this list of integrals. For example,... 

Let us discuss further the permutational symmetry properties of the nuclei subsystem. Since the electronic spatial wave function v /f (r, s R0) depends parametrically on the nuclear coordinates, and the electronic spacial and spin coordinates are defined in the BF, it follows that one must take into account the effects of the nuclei under the permutations of the identical nuclei. Of course,... 

Determination of a wave function for a system that obeys the correct permutational symmetry may be ensured by projection onto the irreducible representations of the symmetry groups to which the systems in question belong. For each subset of identical particles i, we can implement the desired permutational symmetry into the basis functions by projection onto the irreducible representation of the permutation group, for total spin 5, using the appropriate projection operator T,. The total projection operator would then be a product ... 

The function F(l,2) is in fact the space part of the total wave function, since a non-relativistic two-electron wave function can always be represented by a product of the spin and space parts, both having opposite symmetries with respect to the electrons permutations. Thus, one may skip the spin function and use only the space part of the wave function. The only trace that spin leaves is the definite per-mutational symmetry and sign in Eq.(14) refers to singlet as "+" and to triplet as Xi and yi denote cartesian coordinates of the ith electron. A is commonly known angular projection quantum number and A is equal to 0, 1, and 2 for L, II and A symmetry of the electronic state respectively. The linear variational coefficients c, are found by solving the secular equations. The basis functions i(l,2) which possess 2 symmetry are expressed in elliptic coordinates as ... 

These density matrices are themselves quadratic functions of the Cl coefficients and they reflect all of the permutational symmetry of the determinental functions used in constructing T they are a compact representation of all of the Slater-Condon rules as applied to the particular CSFs which appear in Tk They contain all information about the spin-orbital occupancy of the CSFs in Tk The one- and two- electron integrals < (f>i I f I (f>j > and < (f>i(f>j I g I ( >k4>i > contain all of the information about the magnitudes of the kinetic and Coulombic interaction energies. 

In a more complex situation than that of two electrons occupying each its orbital one can expect much more sophisticated interconnections between the total spin and two-electron densities than those demonstrated above. The general statement follows from the theorem given in [72] which states that no one-electron density can depend on the permutation symmetry properties and thus on the total spin of the wave function. For that reason the difference between states of different total spin is concentrated in the cumulant. If there is no cumulant there is no chance to describe this difference. This explains to some extent the failure of almost 40 years of attempts to squeeze the TMCs into the semiempirical HFR theory by extending the variety of the two-electron integrals included in the parameterization. 

If the TV-particle basis were a complete set of JV-electron functions, the use of the variational approach would introduce no error, because the true wave function could be expanded exactly in such a basis. However, such a basis would be of infinite dimension, creating practical difficulties. In practice, therefore, we must work with incomplete IV-particle basis sets. This is one of our major practical approximations. In addition, we have not addressed the question of how to construct the W-particle basis. There are no doubt many physically motivated possibilities, including functions that explicitly involve the interelectronic coordinates. However, any useful choice of function must allow for practical evaluation of the JV-electron integrals of Eq. 1.7 (and Eq. 1.8 if the functions are nonorthogonal). This rules out many of the physically motivated choices that are known, as well as many other possibilities. Almost universally, the iV-particle basis functions are taken as linear combinations of products of one-electron functions — orbitals. Such linear combinations are usually antisymmetrized to account for the permutational symmetry of the wave function, and may be spin- and symmetry-adapted, as discussed elsewhere ... 

In this set the functions can be classified into two types in the right column the spatial multiplier is symmetric with respect to transpositions of the spatial coordinates and the spin multiplier is antisymmetric with respect to transpositions of the spin coordinates in the left column the spatial multiplier is antisymmetric with respect to transpositions of the spatial coordinates and the spin multipliers are symmetric with respect to transpositions of the spin coordinates. Because in the second case the spatial (antisymmetric) multiplier is the same for all three spin-functions, the energy of these three states will be the same i.e. triply degenerate - a triplet. The state with the antisymmetric spin multiplier is compatible with several different spatial wave functions, which probably produces a different value of energy when averaging the Hamiltonian, thus producing several spin-singlet states. From this example one may derive two conclusions (i) the spin of the many electronic wave function is important not by itself (the Hamiltonian is spin-independent), but as an indicator of the symmetry properties of the wave function (ii) the symmetry properties of the spatial and spin multipliers are complementary - if the spatial part is symmetric with respect to permutations the spin multiplier is antisymmetric and vice versa. 

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