Time dependent self consistent field quantum

For the case of intramolecular energy transfer from excited vibrational states, a mixed quantum-classical treatment was given by Gerber et al. already in 1982 [101]. These authors used a time-dependent self-consistent field (TDSCF) approximation. In the classical limit of TDSCF averages over wave functions are replaced by averages over bundles of trajectories, each obtained by SCF methods. 

The goal of this chapter is twofold. First we wish to critically compare—from both a conceptional and a practical point of view—various classical and mixed quantum-classical strategies to describe non-Born-Oppenheimer dynamics. To this end. Section II introduces five multidimensional model problems, each representing a specific challenge for a classical description. Allowing for exact quantum-mechanical reference calculations, aU models have been used as benchmark problems to study approximate descriptions. In what follows, Section III describes in some detail the mean-field trajectory method and also discusses its connection to time-dependent self-consistent-field schemes. The surface-hopping method is considered in Section IV, which discusses various motivations of the ansatz as well as several variants of the implementation. Section V gives a brief account on the quantum-classical Liouville description and considers the possibility of an exact stochastic realization of its equation of motion. 

The classical-path approximation introduced above is common to most MQC formulations and describes the reaction of the quantum DoF to the dynamics of the classical DoF. The back-reaction of the quantum DoF onto the dynamics of the classical DoF, on the other hand, may be described in different ways. In the mean-field trajectory (MFT) method (which is sometimes also called Ehrenfest model, self-consistent classical-path method, or semiclassical time-dependent self-consistent-field method) considered in this section, the classical force F = pj acting on the nuclear DoF xj is given as an average over the quantum DoF... 

Figure 10. Comparison of quantum-mechanical time-dependent self-consistent field (time-dependent Hartree) (dashed fine) and quantum path-integral (dots) calculations obtained for Model Va (upper panel) and Model Vb (lower panel), respectively. Shown is the time-dependent population probabihty P t) of the initially prepared diabatic electronic state.

Let us briefly mention some formal aspects of the above-introduced formalism, which have been discussed in detail by Blaizot and Marshalek [218]. First, it is noted that the both the Schwinger and the Holstein-Primakoff representations are not unitary transformations in the usual sense. Nevertheless, a transformation may be defined in terms of a formal mapping operator acting in the fermionic-bosonic product Hilbert space. Furthermore, the interrelation of the Schwinger representation and the Holstein-Primakoff representation has been investigated in the context of quantization of time-dependent self-consistent fields. It has been shown that the representations are related to each other by a nonunitary transformation. This lack of unitarity is a consequence of the nonexistence of a unitary polar decomposition of the creation and annihilation operators a and at [221] and the resulting difficulties in the definition of a proper phase operator in quantum optics [222]. 

Another, purely quantum mechanical approximation is the so-called time-dependent self-consistent field (TDSCF) method. For general reviews see Kerman and Koonin (1976), Goeke and Reinhard (1982), and Negele (1982). For applications to molecular systems see, for example, Gerber and Ratner (1988a,b). In the TDSCF method the wavepacket is separated according to... 

R.B. Gerber and R. Alimi, Quantum molecular dynamics by a perturbation-corrected time-dependent self-consistent-field method, Chem. Phys. Lett., 184 (1991) 69. 

The MFT equation of motion (25) can be derived in many ways, including the WKB approximation, the eikonal method, a (semi)classical time-dependent self-consistent field ansatz, density-matrix approaches, and the classical limit of algebraic quantization. Depending on the specific approach used, slightly different MFT schemes may result. For example, the classical force can be described either by the average of the quantum force as in Eq. (25) or by the derivative of the average quantum potential. 

Starting from the normal mode approximation, one can introduce anharmonicity in different ways. Anharmonic perturbation theory [206] and local mode models [204] may be useful in some cases, where anharmonic effects are small or mostly diagonal. Vibrational self-consistent-field and configuration-interaction treatments [207, 208] can also be powerful and offer a hierarchy of approximation levels. Even more rigorous multidimensional treatments include variational calculations [209], diffusion quantum Monte Carlo, and time-dependent Hartree approaches [210]. 

That is, the classical DoF propagate according to a mean-field potential, the value of which is weighted by the instantaneous populations of the different quantum states. A MFT calculation thus consists of the self-consistent solution of the time-dependent Schrodinger equation (28) for the quantum DoF and Newton s equation (32) for the classical DoF. To represent the initial state (15) of the molecular system, the electronic DoF dk Q) as well as the nuclear DoF xj Q) and Pj 0) are sampled from a quasi-classical phase-space distribution [23, 24, 26]. 

A large class of time-dependent quantum problems involves strongly interacting coupled fields requiring self-consistent non-perturbative and non-adiabatic approaches. We present here a general framev ork for analyzing these, based on Liouvillean Quantum Field Dynamics. Thus a multifunctional extension of the time-dependent density functional approach to many-body problems is... 

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