Structural transition mechanisms, potential clusters

Beyond the clusters, to microscopically model a reaction in solution, we need to include a very big number of solvent molecules in the system to represent the bulk. The problem stems from the fact that it is computationally impossible, with our current capabilities, to locate the transition state structure of the reaction on the complete quantum mechanical potential energy hypersurface, if all the degrees of freedom are explicitly included. Moreover, the effect of thermal statistical averaging should be incorporated. Then, classical mechanical computer simulation techniques (Monte Carlo or Molecular Dynamics) appear to be the most suitable procedures to attack the above problems. In short, and applied to the computer simulation of chemical reactions in solution, the Monte Carlo [18-21] technique is a numerical method in the frame of the classical Statistical Mechanics, which allows to generate a set of system configurations... 

The quantum-mechanical description of minerals containing transition metals is at a less advanced stage. The accuracy of simple Hartree-Fock-Roothaan methods has not been fully determined for such systems. Local-density-functional methods have been successful for calculating the structural properties of high-symmetry materials, but excitation energies are still poorly reproduced. Local-density-functional cluster calculations have so far been restricted mostly to model potentials (e.g., muffin-tin potentials) so that their full power has not been utilized. We need to determine the accuracy and efficiency of Hartree-Fock-Roothaan (or Har-... 

Static structural calculations for the water cluster anion have revealed the quantum mechanical origin of the binding force for the excess electron and various equilibrium structures. [87, 158, 195, 211, 339] It is now established that the excess electron is bound principally by the dipole field formed by the water molecules. In their elaborate studies on the potential landscape of anion water clusters, Choi and Jordan [87] explored a large number of local minima as well as the transition states on the potential... 

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