Vibronic coupling approximation

The above formulation of the JTE without the exception of linear molecules was given first by L. Landau in a discussion with E. Teller of his student s (Renner s) work on the Unear CO2 molecule [3]. Since in the Unear vibronic coupling approximation linear molecules are exceptions from the JTE, TeUer claimed that in this case Landau was wrong and that this was the only argument he won in discussions with Landau . It turns out that Teller did not win this argument, because when the fuU vibronic coupling is taken into account (as was impUed in Landau s statement) Unear molecules are not exceptions. 

A further model Hamiltonian that is tailored for the treatment of non-adiabatic systems is the vibronic coupling (VC) model of Koppel et al. [65]. This provides an analytic expression for PES coupled by non-adiabatic effects, which can be fitted to ab initio calculations using only a few data points. As a result, it is a useful tool in the description of photochemical systems. It is also very useful in the development of dynamics methods, as it provides realistic global surfaces that can be used both for exact quantum wavepacket dynamics and more approximate methods. 

The majority of photochemistry of course deals with nondegenerate states, and here vibronic coupling effects aie also found. A classic example of non-Jahn-Teller vibronic coupling is found in the photoelection spectrum of butatiiene, formed by ejection of electrons from the electronic eigenfunctions [approximately the molecular orbitals). Bands due to the ground and first... 

In his classical paper, Renner [7] first explained the physical background of the vibronic coupling in triatomic molecules. He concluded that the splitting of the bending potential curves at small distortions of linearity has to depend on p, being thus mostly pronounced in H electronic state. Renner developed the system of two coupled Schrbdinger equations and solved it for H states in the harmonic approximation by means of the perturbation theory. 

Figure 16-36 shows the absorption spectra of thin films of four differently substituted five-ring OPVs. in contrast to the solution spectra, which show structureless low-energy absorption bands, the absorption bands of the films are structured. In the solid slate, the molecules are spatially constrained, whereas in solution different conformers exist, resulting in a distribution of accessible levels. As a consequence, some details appear in the absorption spectrum of the films which can be attributed to vibronic coupling, while, in dilute solution, the spectrum is a broad featureless band. For oct-OPV5 and Ooci-OPV5 films, the absorption maxima are red-shifted over approximately 0.1 eV relative to the solution (see Fig. 16-12). The low-energy absorption band of a thin film of Ooct-OPV5-CN" displays an appreciably larger...

Figure 10. Low-energy vibronic levels in the X2II state of HCCS computed in various approximations [152]. Hq zeroth-order approximation (both vibronic and spin-orbit couplings neglected). Hi. vibronic coupling taken into account, spin-orbit interaction neglected. Hi + Hs0 both vibronic and spin-orbit couplings taken into account. Solid horizontal lines K = 0 vibronic levels dashed line K — 1 dash-dotted lines K = 2 dotted lines K — 3. Values of the quantum numbers V4, N of the basis functions dominating the vibronic wave function of the level in question are indicated. Approximate correlation of vibronic states computed in various approximations is indicated by thin lines. In all cases the stretching quantum numbers are assumed to be zero.

Hence, according to the symmetry selection rule, n —> n transitions are allowed but n —> ti transitions are forbidden. However, in practice the n —> it transition is weakly allowed due to coupling of vibrational and electronic motions in the molecule (vibronic coupling). Vibronic coupling is a result of the breakdown of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation. 

Here, for notational convenience, we have assumed that Vnm = We would like to emphasize that the mapping to the continuous Hamiltonian (88) does not involve any approximation, but merely represents the discrete Hamiltonian (1) in an extended Hilbert space. The quantum dynamics generated by both Hamilton operators is thus equivalent. The Hamiltonian (88) describes a general vibronically coupled molecular system, whereby both electronic and nuclear DoF are represented by continuous variables. Contrary to Eq. (1), the quantum-mechanical system described by Eq. (88) therefore has a well-defined classical analog. 

To perform a PO analysis of nonadiabatic quantum dynamics, we employ a quasi-classical approximation that expresses time-dependent quantities of a vibronically coupled system in terms of the vibronic POs of the system [123]. Considering the quasi-classical expression (16) for the time-dependent expectation value of an observable A, this approximation assumes that the integrable islands in phase space represent the most significant contributions to the dynamics of the observables considered [236]. As a consequence, the short-time dynamics of the system is determined by its shortest POs and can be approximated by a time average over these orbits. Denoting the A th PO with period 7 by qk t),Pk t) we obtain [123]... 

A quantitative treatment of the Jahn-Teller effect is more challenging (46). A major issue is that many theoretical models explicitly or implicitly assume the Bom—Oppenheimer approximation which, for octahedral Cu(II) systems in the vibronic coupling regime, cannot be correct (46,51). Hitchman and co-workers solved the vibronic Hamiltonian in order to model the temperature dependence of the molecular structure and the attendant spectroscopic properties, notably EPR spectra (52). Others, including us, take a more simphstic approach (53,54) but, in either case, a similar Mexican hat potential energy description of the principal features of the Jahn-Teller effect in homoleptic Cu(II) complexes emerges (Fig. 13). 

The vibronic integrals Vs and Vst contain a radial part and an angular part. The angular part can be determined with the help of the group theory and the remainder (the reduced matrix element) is taken as a parameter depending only on the symmetry type (Xe and Xee). Considering the quadratic approximation to the E-e vibronic coupling the vibronic matrix becomes expressed as follows [88-90] ... 

---