Two-spin Hamiltonian

Neglecting CSA and /-coupling, the homonuclear two-spin Hamiltonian (Eq. (69)) becomes... 

We now come back to the important example of two spin 1/2 nuclei with the dipole-dipole interaction discussed above. In simple physical tenns, we can say that one of the spins senses a fluctuating local magnetic field originatmg from the other one. In tenns of the Hamiltonian of equation B 1.13.8. the stochastic fiinction of time F l t) is proportional to Y2 (9,( ))/rjo, where Y, is an / = 2 spherical hannonic and r. is the... 

CIDNP involves the observation of diamagnetic products fonned from chemical reactions which have radical intemiediates. We first define the geminate radical pair (RP) as the two molecules which are bom in a radical reaction with a well defined phase relation (singlet or triplet) between their spins. Because the spin physics of the radical pair are a fiindamental part of any description of the origins of CIDNP, it is instmctive to begin with a discussion of the radical-pair spin Hamiltonian. The Hamiltonian can be used in conjunction with an appropriate basis set to obtain the energetics and populations of the RP spin states. A suitable Hamiltonian for a radical pair consisting of radicals 1 and 2 is shown in equation (B1.16.1) below [12]. 

MMVB is a hybrid force field, which uses MM to treat the unreactive molecular framework, combined with a valence bond (VB) approach to treat the reactive part. The MM part uses the MM2 force field [58], which is well adapted for organic molecules. The VB part uses a parametrized Heisenberg spin Hamiltonian, which can be illustrated by considering a two orbital, two electron description of a sigma bond described by the VB determinants... 

The EPR spectra of cell walls saturated with copper has been fitted to the numerical solutions of the spin hamiltonian describing the EPR lineshape of cupric ions. Two simulations have been performed. The first one (Fig. 4.a) considers that all uronic acids of the cell walls are similar the best fit is rather poor. The second one assumes existence of two populations of exchange sites with different parameters. In this case, the optimization is much better and confirms the existence of two different types of uronic acids in the cell wall (Fig. 4.b). 

In electrocatalysis, the reactants are in contact with the electrode, and electronic interactions are strong. Therefore, the one-electron approximation is no longer justified at least two spin states on a valence orbital must be considered. Further, the form of the bond Hamiltonian (2.12) is not satisfactory, since it simply switches between two electronic states. This approach becomes impractical with two spin states in one orbital also, it has an ad hoc nature, which is not satisfactory. 

If the electric quadrupole splitting of the 7 = 3/2 nuclear state of Fe is larger than the magnetic perturbation, as shown in Fig. 4.13, the nij = l/2) and 3/2) states can be treated as independent doublets and their Zeeman splitting can be described independently by effective nuclear g factors and two effective spins 7 = 1/2, one for each doublet [67]. The approach corresponds exactly to the spin-Hamiltonian concept for electronic spins (see Sect. 4.7.1). The nuclear spin Hamiltonian for each of the two Kramers doublets of the Fe nucleus is ... 

In species with two or more unpaired electrons, a fine structure term must be added to the spin Hamiltonian to represent electron spin-spin interactions. We confine our attention here to radicals with one unpaired electron (S = 1 /2) but will address the S > 1/2 problem in Chapter 6. 

From the point of view of ESR spectroscopy, the distinction between molecules with one unpaired electron and those with more than one lies in the fact that electrons interact with one another these interactions lead to additional terms in the spin Hamiltonian and additional features in the ESR spectrum. The most important electron electron interaction is coulombic repulsion with two unpaired electrons, repulsion leads to the singlet-triplet splitting. As we will see, this effect can be modeled by adding a term, JS St, to the spin Hamiltonian,... 

The spin Hamiltonian for a biradical consists of terms representing the electron Zeeman interaction, the exchange coupling of the two electron spins, and hyperfine interaction of each electron with the nuclear spins. We assume that there are two equivalent nuclei, each strongly coupled to one electron and essentially uncoupled to the other. The spin Hamiltonian is ... 

Let us see what the energy levels look like for these two systems and try to understand how Baker, Bleaney, and Bowers determined the values given in Table 6.2. The spin Hamiltonian is ... 

In Chapter 4 (Sections 4.7 and 4.8) several examples were presented to illustrate the effects of non-coincident g- and -matrices on the ESR of transition metal complexes. Analysis of such spectra requires the introduction of a set of Eulerian angles, a, jS, and y, relating the orientations of the two coordinate systems. Here is presented a detailed description of how the spin Hamiltonian is modified, to second-order in perturbation theory, to incorporate these new parameters in a systematic way. Most of the calculations in this chapter were first executed by Janice DeGray.1 Some of the details, in the notation used here, have also been published in ref. 8. 

If two or three unpaired electrons are present so that the total spin is greater than one-half, additional terms must be added to the spin Hamiltonian of Eq. (6). The new terms may be written as... 

Before going on to calculate the energy levels it is necessary to digress and briefly describe the wavefunction. The spin Hamiltonian only operates on the spin part of the wavefunction. Every unpaired electron has a spin vector /S = with spin quantum numbers ms = + and mB = — f. The wavefunctions for these two spin states are denoted by ae) and d ), respectively. The proton likewise has I = with spin wavefunctions an) and dn)- In the present example these will be used as the basis functions in our calculation of energy levels, although it is sometimes convenient to use a linear combination of these spin states. 

The method presented here for evaluating energy levels from the spin Hamiltonian and then determining the allowed transitions is quite general and can be applied to more complex systems by using the appropriate spin Hamiltonian. Of particular interest in surface studies are molecules for which the g values, as well as the hyperfine coupling constants, are not isotropic. These cases will be discussed in the next two sections. 

The EPR spectrum is a reflection of the electronic structure of the paramagnet. The latter may be complicated (especially in low-symmetry biological systems), and the precise relation between the two may be very difficult to establish. As an intermediate level of interpretation, the concept of the spin Hamiltonian was developed, which will be dealt with later in Part 2 on theory. For the time being it suffices to know that in this approach the EPR spectrum is described by means of a small number of parameters, the spin-Hamiltonian parameters, such as g-values, A-values, and )-values. This approach has the advantage that spectral data can be easily tabulated, while a demanding interpretation of the parameters in terms of the electronic structure can be deferred to a later date, for example, by the time we have developed a sufficiently adequate theory to describe electronic structure. In the meantime we can use the spin-Hamiltonian parameters for less demanding, but not necessarily less relevant applications, for example, spin counting. We can also try to establish... 

However, we have previously seen in Chapter 5 that the number of elements in the zero-field tensor can be reduced to two (Equation 5.25) by making D traceless, and so the spin Hamiltonian can be written as... 

We now consider the relatively simple case of two different electron spins each with a spin of one-half Sa = 1/2 and Sb = 1/2. The spin Hamiltonian is... 

For matrices of modest dimensions 1024 matrix diagonalizations may not be a serious CPU problem for a PC, but if we include (as we will in the next chapter) distributions in the spin Hamiltonian parameters the required CPU time goes up by, say, two orders of magnitude, and if we want to implement automatic minimization, we must pay with another two or three orders of magnitude in CPU-time. 

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