Standard self-consistent field approach

The details on the operators introduced in the two schemes will be given below, here we only want to add that the addition of Henv to the solute Hamiltonian automatically leads to a modification of the solute wavefunction which has now to be determined by solving the effective Eq. (1-1). This can be done using exactly the same methods used for isolated molecules here in particular we shall mainly focus on the standard self-consistent field (SCF) approach (either in its Hartree-Fock or DFT formulation). Due to the presence of Hem the modified SCF scheme is generally known as self-consistent reaction field (SCRF). Historically the term SCRF has been coined for the QM/continuum approach but here, due the parallelism between the two schemes which will be made clear in the following sections, it will be used indistinctly for both. 

In this paper a method [11], which allows for an a priori BSSE removal at the SCF level, is for the first time applied to interaction densities studies. This computational protocol which has been called SCF-MI (Self-Consistent Field for Molecular Interactions) to highlight its relationship to the standard Roothaan equations and its special usefulness in the evaluation of molecular interactions, has recently been successfully used [11-13] for evaluating Eint in a number of intermolecular complexes. Comparison of standard SCF interaction densities with those obtained from the SCF-MI approach should shed light on the effects of BSSE removal. Such effects may then be compared with those deriving from the introduction of Coulomb correlation corrections. To this aim, we adopt a variational perturbative valence bond (VB) approach that uses orbitals derived from the SCF-MI step and thus maintains a BSSE-free picture. Finally, no bias should be introduced in our study by the particular approach chosen to analyze the observed charge density rearrangements. Therefore, not a model but a theory which is firmly rooted in Quantum Mechanics, applied directly to the electron density p and giving quantitative answers, is to be adopted. Bader s Quantum Theory of Atoms in Molecules (QTAM) [14, 15] meets nicely all these requirements. Such a theory has also been recently applied to molecular crystals as a valid tool to rationalize and quantitatively detect crystal field effects on the molecular densities [16-18]. 

The method achieves self-consistency within a similar number of self-consistent field iterations as eigensolver-based approaches. However, the replacement of the standard diagonalization at each self-consistent iteration by a polynomial filtering step results in a significant speedup over methods based on standard diagonalization, often by more than an order of magnitude. Algorithmic details of a parallel... 

Analytic gradient methods became widely used as a result of their implementation for closed-shell self-consistent field (SCF) wavefunctions by Pulay, who has reviewed the development of this topic. Since then, these methods have been extended to deal with all types of SCF wavefunctions, - as well as multi-configuration SCF (MC-SCF), - " configuration-interaction (Cl) wavefunctions, and various non-variational methods such as MoUer-Plesset (MP) perturbation theory - - and coupled-cluster (CC) techniques. - In short, it is possible to obtain analytic energy derivatives for virtually all the standard ab initio approaches. The main use of analytic gradient methods is, and will remain, the location of stationary points on a potential energy siuface, to obtain equilibrium and transition-state geometries. However, there is a specialized use in the calculation of quantities such as dipole derivatives. 

The computational exploration of the conformatimial landscapes of neutral hydrated monosaccharides is particularly challenging because the relative energies of the many possible conformational structures are very close and, in some cases, the associated vibrational spectra differ only very slightly. Singly hydrated pXyl-O-Ph is a typical example of these difficulties [50]. To improve the theoretical description of such systems, more sophisticated approaches than the standard DFT calculation have been applied. Vibrational anharmonicity has been accommodated ab initio, using Vibrational Self Consistent Field (VSCF) theory, and has reproduced very accurately the observed spectra [47, 50, 53]. The conformational interconversion of hydrated monosaccharides has been simulated using Ab Initio... 

Yet another promising line of research lies in creating mesoscopic representations whose fundamental scale is somewhere within the 1010 range of distance scales and for which one defines closed (or fully consistent) equations of motion. At the macroscopic limit, hydrodynamic models are a very successful and standard example. More recent approaches include the Cahn-Hillard coarse-grained models and phase-field models. In some cases, one aims to ascertain the degree to which the systems exhibit self-similarity at various length scales hence the lack of a specific parameterization—which would be necessary using reduceddimensional models—is not of much importance. 

Over the last years, the basic concepts embedded within the SCRF formalism have undergone some significant improvements, and there are several commonly used variants on this idea. To exemplify the different methods and how their results differ, one recent work from this group [52] considered the sensitivity of results to the particular variant chosen. Due to its dependence upon only the dipole moment of the solute, the older approach is referred to herein as the dipole variant. The dipole method is also crude in the sense that the solute is placed in a spherical cavity within the solute medium, not a very realistic shape in most cases. The polarizable continuum method (PCM) [53,54,55] embeds the solute in a cavity that more accurately mimics the shape of the molecule, created by a series of overlapping spheres. The reaction field is represented by an apparent surface charge approach. The standard PCM approach utilizes an integral equation formulation (IEF) [56,57], A variant of this method is the conductor-polarized continuum model (CPCM) [58] wherein the apparent charges distributed on the cavity surface are such that the total electrostatic potential cancels on the surface. The self-consistent isodensity PCM procedure [59] determines the cavity self-consistently from an isodensity surface. The UAHF (United Atom model for Hartree-Fock/6-31 G ) definition [60] was used for the construction of the solute cavity. 

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