Comments about the representation of Rydberg and ionic excited states and their photochemistry

This paper discusses the conditions for representing Rydberg and ionic excited states of molecules. It especially shows the intrinsic difficulties of MO methods to treat the weak resonances between strongly polarized situations in highly polarizable symmetric systems; such situations occur in the long distance region for Rydberg excited states of homonuclear molecules, and for the 90 ° twisted singlet excited states of polyenes. The valence/Rydberg mixing is discussed, and some principles for the understanding of Rydberg photochemistry are proprosed, based on a few examples. The present knowledge of the photochemistry of zwitterionic excited states of polyenes is summarized.