Time-dependent, computational methods

With time-dependent computer simulation and visualization we can give the novices to QM a direct mind s eye view of many elementary processes. The simulations can include interactive modes where the students can apply forces and radiation to control and manipulate atoms and molecules. They can be posed challenges like trapping atoms in laser beams. These simulations are the inside story of real experiments that have been done, but without the complexity of macroscopic devices. The simulations should preferably be based on rigorous solutions of the time dependent Schrddinger equation, but they could also use proven approximate methods to broaden the range of phenomena to be made accessible to the students. Stationary states and the dynamical transitions between them can be presented as special cases of the full dynamics. All these experiences will create a sense of familiarity with the QM realm. The experiences will nurture accurate intuition that can then be made systematic by the formal axioms and concepts of QM. 

The purpose of the present work is to incorporate this framework into another, very successful formalism in computing the system properties of equally wide ranging magnitude, namely the non-equilibrium time-dependent functional method. Let us define a universal functional in LQD to be... 

When considering the femtosecond photoionization dynamics of complex systems, a completely exact evaluation of the time and energy resolved photoelectron spectrum is often not really necessary. Approximative schemes which require significantly lower computational effort are valuable in such cases. Within the nonperturbative formalism, Meier et al. have proposed an efficient computational scheme which incorporates the multi-configuration time-dependent Hartree method.An approximate method which is based on a classical-trajectory description of the nuclear dynamics has been elaborated by Hartmann, Heidenreich, Bonacic-Koutecky and coworkers and applied, among other systems,to the time-resolved photoionization spectroscopy of conical intersections in sodium fluoride clusters. 

M. Sala, F. Gatti and S. Guerin, Coherent destruction of tunneling in a six-dimensional model of NHD2 a computational study using the multi-configuration time-dependent Hartree method , J. Chem. Phys. 141, 164326 (2014)... 

Joubert Doriol L, Gatti F, lung C, Meyer H-D (2008) Computation of vibrational energy levels and eigenstates of fluoroform using the multiconfiguration time-dependent Hartree method. J Chem Phys 129 224109... 

Neuhauser D, Baer M, Judson RS, Kouri DJ (1991) The application of time-dependent wavepacket methods to reactive scattering. Comput Phys Common 63(13) 460... 

Meyer H-D (2012) Studying molecular quantum dyntimics with the multiconfiguration time-dependent Hartree method. Whey Intentiscip Rev Comput Mol Sci 2 351... 

Leforestier C et ak 1991 Time-dependent quantum mechanical methods for molecular dynamics J. Comput. Phys. 94 59-80... 

In recent years, these methods have been greatly expanded and have reached a degree of reliability where they now offer some of the most accurate tools for studying excited and ionized states. In particular, the use of time-dependent variational principles have allowed the much more rigorous development of equations for energy differences and nonlinear response properties [81]. In addition, the extension of the EOM theory to include coupled-cluster reference fiuictioiis [ ] now allows one to compute excitation and ionization energies using some of the most accurate ab initio tools. 

Iterative approaches, including time-dependent methods, are especially successfiil for very large-scale calculations because they generally involve the action of a very localized operator (the Hamiltonian) on a fiinction defined on a grid. The effort increases relatively mildly with the problem size, since it is proportional to the number of points used to describe the wavefiinction (and not to the cube of the number of basis sets, as is the case for methods involving matrix diagonalization). Present computational power allows calculations... 

This method has been devised as an effective numerical teclmique of computational fluid dynamics. The basic variables are the time-dependent probability distributions f x, f) of a velocity class a on a lattice site x. This probability distribution is then updated in discrete time steps using a detenninistic local rule. A carefiil choice of the lattice and the set of velocity vectors minimizes the effects of lattice anisotropy. This scheme has recently been applied to study the fomiation of lamellar phases in amphiphilic systems [92, 93]. 

In Chapter VI, Ohm and Deumens present their electron nuclear dynamics (END) time-dependent, nonadiabatic, theoretical, and computational approach to the study of molecular processes. This approach stresses the analysis of such processes in terms of dynamical, time-evolving states rather than stationary molecular states. Thus, rovibrational and scattering states are reduced to less prominent roles as is the case in most modem wavepacket treatments of molecular reaction dynamics. Unlike most theoretical methods, END also relegates electronic stationary states, potential energy surfaces, adiabatic and diabatic descriptions, and nonadiabatic coupling terms to the background in favor of a dynamic, time-evolving description of all electrons. 

The preferable theoretical tools for the description of dynamical processes in systems of a few atoms are certainly quantum mechanical calculations. There is a large arsenal of powerful, well established methods for quantum mechanical computations of processes such as photoexcitation, photodissociation, inelastic scattering and reactive collisions for systems having, in the present state-of-the-art, up to three or four atoms, typically. " Both time-dependent and time-independent numerically exact algorithms are available for many of the processes, so in cases where potential surfaces of good accuracy are available, excellent quantitative agreement with experiment is generally obtained. In addition to the full quantum-mechanical methods, sophisticated semiclassical approximations have been developed that for many cases are essentially of near-quantitative accuracy and certainly at a level sufficient for the interpretation of most experiments.These methods also are com-... 

TDGI (time-dependent gauge-invariant) ah initio method used for computing nonlinear optical properties... 

General Properties of Computerized Physical Property System. Flow-sheeting calculations tend to have voracious appetites for physical property estimations. To model a distillation column one may request estimates for chemical potential (or fugacity) and for enthalpies 10,000 or more times. Depending on the complexity of the property methods used, these calculations could represent 80% or more of the computer time requited to do a simulation. The design of the physical property estimation system must therefore be done with extreme care. 

W.F. Noh, CEL A Time-Dependent, Two-Space-Dimensional, Coupled Eulerian-Lagrangian Code, in Methods in Computational Physics, Volume 3 (edited by B. Alder, S. Fernbach and M. Rotenberg), Academic Press, New York, 1964. 

There are basically two different computer simulation techniques known as molecular dynamics (MD) and Monte Carlo (MC) simulation. In MD molecular trajectories are computed by solving an equation of motion for equilibrium or nonequilibrium situations. Since the MD time scale is a physical one, this method permits investigations of time-dependent phenomena like, for example, transport processes [25,61-63]. In MC, on the other hand, trajectories are generated by a (biased) random walk in configuration space and, therefore, do not per se permit investigations of processes on a physical time scale (with the dynamics of spin lattices as an exception [64]). However, MC has the advantage that it can easily be applied to virtually all statistical-physical ensembles, which is of particular interest in the context of this chapter. On account of limitations of space and because excellent texts exist for the MD method [25,61-63,65], the present discussion will be restricted to the MC technique with particular emphasis on mixed stress-strain ensembles. 

---