Variation method orbital approximation

Up to this stage we have been concerned with the use of the variational method for calculating atomic orbitals to provide an independent-particle model that is as realistic as possible. We now turn to a variational method of approximating the lower-energy eigenstates in the spectrum of an atom. 

The complexity of molecular systems precludes exact solution for the properties of their orbitals, including their energy levels, except in the very simplest cases. We can, however, approximate the energies of molecular orbitals by the variational method that finds their least upper bounds in the ground state as Eq. (6-16)... 

Variational methods, in particular the linear variational method, are the most widely used approximation techniques in quantum chemistry. To implement such a method one needs to know the Hamiltonian H whose energy levels are sought and one needs to construct a trial wavefunction in which some flexibility exists (e.g., as in the linear variational method where the Cj coefficients can be varied). In Section 6 this tool will be used to develop several of the most commonly used and powerful molecular orbital methods in chemistry. 

Most of the techniques described in this Chapter are of the ab initio type. This means that they attempt to compute electronic state energies and other physical properties, as functions of the positions of the nuclei, from first principles without the use or knowledge of experimental input. Although perturbation theory or the variational method may be used to generate the working equations of a particular method, and although finite atomic orbital basis sets are nearly always utilized, these approximations do not involve fitting to known experimental data. They represent approximations that can be systematically improved as the level of treatment is enhanced. 

The variation method is usually employed to determine an approximate value of the lowest eneigy state (the ground state) of a given atomic or molecular system. It can, furthermore, be extended to the calculation of energy levels of excited stales. It forms the basis of molecular orbital theory and that which is often referred to (incorrectly) as theoretical chemistry". 

The theoretical results described here give only a zeroth-order description of the electronic structures of iron bearing clay minerals. These results correlate well, however, with the experimentally determined optical spectra and photochemical reactivities of these minerals. Still, we would like to go beyond the simple approach presented here and perform molecular orbital calculations (using the Xo-Scattered wave or Discrete Variational method) which address the electronic structures of much larger clusters. Clusters which accomodate several unit cells of the crystal would be of great interest since the results would be a very close approximation to the full band structure of the crystal. The results of such calculations may allow us to address several major problems ... 

For direct Af-electron variational methods, the computational effort increases so rapidly with increasing N that alternative simplified methods must be used for calculations of the electronic structure of large molecules and solids. Especially for calculations of the electronic energy levels of solids (energy-band structure), the methodology of choice is that of independent-electron models, usually in the framework of density functional theory [189, 321, 90], When restricted to local potentials, as in the local-density approximation (LDA), this is a valid variational theory for any A-electron system. It can readily be applied to heavy atoms by relativistic or semirelativistic modification of the kinetic energy operator in the orbital Kohn-Sham equations [229, 384],... 

To assign values to the molecular orbital coefficients, c, many computational methods apply Hartree-Fock theory (which is based on the variational method).44 This uses the result that the calculated energy of a system with an approximate, normalized, antisymmetric wavefunction will be higher than the exact energy, so to obtain the optimal wavefunction (of the single determinant type), the coefficients c should be chosen such that they minimize the energy E, i.e., dEldc = 0. This leads to a set of equations to be solved for cMi known as the Roothaan-Hall equations. For the closed shell case, the equations are... 

Other Related Methods.—Baerends and Ros have developed a method suitable for large molecules in which the LCAO form of the wavefunction is combined with the use of the Xa approximation for the exchange potential. The method makes use of the discrete variational method originally proposed by Ellis and Painter.138 The one-electron orbitals are expanded in the usual LCAO form and the mean error function is minimized. 

The correspond to different electron configurations. In configuration interaction o is the Hartree-Fock function (or an approximation to it in a truncated basis set) and the other 4>t are constructed from virtual orbitals which are the by-product of the Hartree-Fock calculation. The coefficients Ci are found by the linear-variation method. Unfortunately, the so constructed are usually an inadequate basis for the part of the wavefunction not represented by [Pg.5]

The tensor elements of x can be determined from measurements of macroscopic magnetic susceptibility or evaluated from molecular orbital methods and approximate variation perturbation calculations. Recently, calculations of the magnetic quadrupole polarizability of closed-shell atoms, and magneto-electric susceptibilities of atoms, have been made. These matters, which relate to the behaviour of microsystems under the simultaneous action of an electric and a magnetic field, will be dealt with in detml in subsequent sections. 

The electronic states of general polyatomic molecules are calculated by applying the molecular orbital method with a variation method. The variation method which is used in this approximation involves a linear combination of atomic orbitals, as shown in Table 1.2. In fact it is a method to evaluate the minimum energy eigenvalue of Eq. (1.48). 

The solution of equation (4 I) for n = 1, using the variational method, gives two states (molecular orbitals) which can be represented approximately as linear combinations... 

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