STOs

For both types of orbitals, the coordinates r, 0 and cji refer to the position of the electron relative to a set of axes attached to the centre on which the basis orbital is located. Although STOs have the proper cusp behaviour near the nuclei, they are used primarily for atomic- and linear-molecule calculations because the multi-centre integrals which arise in polyatomic-molecule calculations caimot efficiently be perfonned when STOs are employed. In contrast, such integrals can routinely be done when GTOs are used. This fiindamental advantage of GTOs has led to the dominance of these fimetions in molecular quantum chemistry. 

To overcome the primary weakness of GTO fimetions (i.e. their radial derivatives vanish at the nucleus whereas the derivatives of STOs are non-zero), it is coimnon to combine two, tliree, or more GTOs, with combination coefficients which are fixed and not treated as LCAO-MO parameters, into new functions called contracted GTOs or CGTOs. Typically, a series of tight, medium, and loose GTOs are multiplied by contraction coefficients and suimned to produce a CGTO, which approximates the proper cusp at the nuclear centre. 

Much effort has been devoted to developing sets of STO or GTO basis orbitals for main-group elements and the lighter transition metals. This ongoing effort is aimed at providing standard basis set libraries which ... 

A minimal basis in which the number of STO or GOTO orbitals is equal to the number of core and valence AOs in tlie atom. 

A double-zeta (DZ) basis in which twice as many STOs or CGTOs are used as there are core and valence AOs. The use of more basis functions is motivated by a desire to provide additional variational flexibility so the LCAO-MO process can generate MOs of variable difhiseness as the local electronegativity of the atom varies. 

A triple-zeta (TZ) basis in which tlnee times as many STOs or CGTOs are used as the number of core and valence AOs (and, yes, there now are quadniple-zeta (QZ) and higher-zeta basis sets appearing in the literature). 

STO-3G bases [4T] were employed some years ago, but have recently become less popular. These bases are constructed by least-squares fitting GTOs to STOs which have been optimized for various electronic states of the atom. Wlien tlnee GTOs are employed to fit each STO, a STO-3G basis is fonned. 

Split valence basis sets generally give much better results than minimal ones, but at a cost. Remember that the number of two-electron integrals is proportional to kf , where W is the number of basis functions. Whereas STO-3G has only live ba.sis functions for carbon, 6-31G has nine, resulting in more than a tenfold increase in the size of the calculation,... 

These atomic orbitals, called Slater Type Orbitals (STOs), are a simplification of exact soil tion s of the Sch rbdin ger eq nation for the... 

Because th e calculation of m n Iti-ceiiter in tegrals that are in evitable for ah iniiio method is very difficult and time-con sum in g. Ilyper-Chem uses Gaussian Type Orbital (GTO) for ah initio methods. In truly reflecting a atomic orbital. STO may he better than GTO. so HyperC hem uses several GTOs to construct a STO. The number of GTOs depends on the basis sets. For example, in the minimum STO-3G basis set IlyperGhem uses three GTOs to construct a STO. 

Th e con traction expon en ts and cocfTicien ts of th e d-type functions were optinii/ed using five d-primitives (the first set of d-type functions) for the STO-XG basis sets and six d-primitives (the second set of d-type functions ) for the split-valence basis sets. Thus, five d orbitals are recommended for the STO-XG basis sets and six d orhitals for the split-valence basis sets. 

Once the least-squares fits to Slater functions with orbital exponents e = 1.0 are available, fits to Slater function s with oth er orbital expon cn ts can be obtained by siin ply m ii Itiplyin g th e cc s in th e above three equations by It remains to be determined what Slater orbital exponents to use in electronic structure calculation s. The two possibilities may be to use the "best atom" exponents (e = 1. f) for II. for exam pie) or to opiim i/e exponents in each calculation. The "best atom expon en ts m igh t be a rather poor ch oicc for mo lecular en viron men ts, and optirn i/.at ion of non linear exponents is not practical for large molecules, where the dimension of the space to be searched is very large.. 4 com prom isc is to use a set of standard exponents where the average values of expon en ts are optirn i/ed for a set of sin all rn olecules, fh e recom -mended STO-3G exponents are... 

These functions are universally known as Slater type orbitals (STOs) and are just the leading term in the appropriate Laguerre polynomials. The first three Slater functions are as follows ... 

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