Is it possible to synthesize bulk salt compounds?

The existence and stability of bulk salt compounds are theoretically investigated in this study. This undertaking is carried out to address the following challenge: synthesizing a bulk salt compound containing a noble gas lighter than Kr. The reliability of theoretical calculations on systems is assessed by benchmark calculations of the well-known salt. In the benchmark calculations, a two-pronged evaluation strategy, including direct and indirect evaluation methods, is used to theoretically investigate the spectroscopic constants of cation and the existence and stability of the salt. The validity of the theoretical calculation methods in the benchmark calculations of salt allows us to adopt a similar methodology to effectively predict the existence and stability of salt compounds. Calculations based on the Born-Haber cycle using estimated lattice energies and some necessary ancillary thermochemical data show that salt compounds can be synthesized, and their upper-limit stable temperatures are estimated to be −237.589, −197.76, and −80.539°C. The salt compound is the most promising candidate. Calculations also show that the salt compounds cannot be stabilized.     

On normalized Laplacians,multiplicative degree-Kirchhoff indices,and spanning trees of the linear [n]phenylenes and their dicyclobutadieno derivatives

Let be the molecular graph of the linear [n] phenylene with n hexagons and n − 1 squares, and let be the graph obtained by attaching four-membered rings to the terminal hexagons of . In this article, the normalized Laplacian spectrum of consisting of the eigenvalues of two symmetric tridiagonal matrices of order 3n is determined. An explicit closed-form formula of the multiplicative degree-Kirchhoff index (respectively the number of spanning trees) of is derived. Similarly, explicit closed-form formulas of the multiplicative degree-Kirchhoff index and the number of spanning trees of are obtained. It is interesting to see that the multiplicative degree-Kirchhoff index of (respectively ) is approximately to one half of its Gutman index.     

On the normalized Laplacian of Möbius phenylene chain and its applications

Let denote a molecular graph of linear [n] phenylene with n hexagons and n squares, and let the Möbius phenylene chain be the graph obtained from the by identifying the opposite lateral edges in reversed way. Utilizing the decomposition theorem of the normalized Laplacian characteristic polynomial, we study the normalized Laplacian spectrum of , which consists of the eigenvalues of two symmetric matrices ℒ _R and ℒ _Q of order 3n. By investigating the relationship between the roots and coefficients of the characteristic polynomials of the two matrices above, we obtain an explicit closed-form formula of the multiplicative degree-Kirchhoff index as well as the number of spanning trees of . Furthermore, we determine the limited value for the quotient of the multiplicative degree-Kirchhoff index and the Gutman index of .     

Exponentially correlated Hylleraas-configuration interaction studies of atomic systems. II. Non-relativistic energies of the 1 through 6 states of the Li+ ion

The exponentially correlated Hylleraas-configuration interaction wave function (E-Hy-CI) is a generalization of the Hylleraas-configuration interaction (Hy-CI) in which the single of an Hy-CI wave function is generalized to the generic type . This type of correlation has the right behavior both in the vicinity of the cusp and as goes to infinity; this work shows that wave functions containing both linear and exponential factors converge more rapidly than either one alone for low-lying excited states of ¹S symmetry. E-Hy-CI variational calculations with up to 8568 configurations lead to a nonrelativistic energy of ?7.2799 1341 2669 3059 6491 6759 hartree for the 1 ¹S ground state of the Li+ ion.     

Extremal Wiener and Kirchhoff indices of globular caterpillars

The Wiener and Kirchhoff indices of a graph G are two of the most important topological indices in mathematical chemistry. A graph G is called to be a globular caterpillar if G is obtained from a complete graph K _s with vertex set {v₁,v₂,…, v _s} by attaching n _i pendent edges to each vertex v _i of K _s for some positive integers s and n₁,n₂,…,n _s, denoted by . Let be the set of globular caterpillars with n vertices (). In this article, we characterize the globular caterpillars with the minimal and maximal Wiener and Kirchhoff indices among , respectively.     

Virial relations in density embedding

The accuracy of charge-transfer excitation energies, solvatochromic shifts, and other environmental effects calculated via various density-embedding techniques depend critically on the approximations employed for the nonadditive noninteracting kinetic energy functional, . Approximating this functional remains an important challenge in electronic-structure theory. To assist in the development and testing of approximations for , we derive two virial relations for fragments in molecules. These establish separate connections between the nonadditive kinetic energies of the noninteracting and interacting systems of electrons, and quantities such as the electron-nuclear attraction forces, the partition (or embedding) energy and potential, and the Kohn-Sham potentials of the system and its parts. We numerically verify both relations on diatomic molecules.     

Dynamical Jahn-Teller effect in the first excited

Jahn-Teller effect of C₆₀ monoanion in the first electronically excited states was theoretically investigated. The orbital vibronic coupling parameters for t_1g next lowest unoccupied molecular orbitals were derived from the Kohn-Sham orbital levels calculated using a frozen phonon approach with both hybrid B3LYP and CAM-B3LYP functionals, which take long-range interaction correction into consideration. With these coupling parameters, the vibronic states of first excited were derived by exactly diagonalizing dynamical Jahn-Teller Hamiltonian. The results showed that dynamical Jahn-Teller effects are more significant in the first excited than those in the ground electronic states. This work also clarified that CAM-B3LYP gives results closer to experimental data than B3LYP.     

DFT and CIS(D) theoretical study on the ground and excited states of pentanitrogen cation

Different isomers of N₅⁺ were modeled at DFT(PBE0)/aug-cc-pV(Q + d)Z, and their ground(transition) state characteristics were assessed through frequency calculations. Single-point energies were accomplished at PBE0/aug-cc-pV(5 + d)Z. Nonlinear optical susceptibilities (NLO) of isomers were accomplished using Firefly, while the linear optical invariant was examined using the finite-field method, Firefly, and modified dipole field tensor in the presence of two different screening factors. The excited states, singlets and triplets, of were modeled at the CIS and CIS(D) and then their optical parameters were estimated at TDFT(PBE0)/aug-cc-pV(Q + d)Z using Firefly. The singlet is found the most stable isomer, with the inversional rate constant larger than that of the Cs isomer and high energy barrier with the triplet counterpart. Isomers 2 , 3 , and 4 are found local minima, while 5 and 6 are saddle points: transition states between equivalent invertomers. Energy calculations of the singlet and triplet isomers were in excellent agreement with the literature. An excellent correlation is found between the average polarizability and the impulse factor. Substantial variations were found between the singlet and triplet excited states in terms of energy, geometry, and optical properties from one side and with from the other side. Reactivity indices showed that N1 and N5 are the optimum nucleophilic and electrophilic reactivity sites.     

Study on the normalized Laplacian of a penta-graphene with applications

Let L _n denote a linear pentagonal chain with 2n pentagons. The penta-graphene (penta-C), denoted by R _n is the graph obtained from L _n by identifying the opposite lateral edges in an ordered way, whereas the pentagonal Möbius ring is the graph obtained from the L _n by identifying the opposite lateral edges in a reversed way. In this paper, through the decomposition theorem of the normalized Laplacian characteristic polynomial and the relationship between its roots and the coefficients, an explicit closed-form formula of the multiplicative degree-Kirchhoff index (resp. Kemeny's constant, the number of spanning trees) of R _n is obtained. Furthermore, it is interesting to see that the multiplicative degree-Kirchhoff index of R _n is approximately of its Gutman index. Based on our obtained results, all the corresponding results are obtained for .     

Oxidation of methylamine

A detailed chemical kinetic model for oxidation of methylamine has been developed, based on theoretical work and a critical evaluation of data from the literature. The rate coefficients for the reactions of CHNH + O CHNH / CHNH + HO, CHNH + H CH + NH, CHNH CHNH, and CHNH + O CHNH + HO were calculated from ab initio theory. The mechanism was validated against experimental results from batch reactors, flow reactors, shock tubes, and premixed flames. The model predicts satisfactorily explosion limits for CHNH and its oxidation in a flow reactor. However, oxidation in the presence of nitric oxide, which strongly promotes reaction at lower temperatures, is only described qualitatively. Furthermore, calculated flame speeds are higher than reported experimental values; the model does not capture the inhibiting effect of the NH group in CHNH compared to CH. More work is desirable to confirm the products of the CHNH + NO reaction and to look into possible pathways to NH in methylamine oxidation.     

Size Evolution of Photoabsorption Spectra of Small Clusters: A Computational Study

Photoabsorption spectra of clusters, N=5–9, have been calculated using a diatomics-in-molecules like electronic structure model and a path-integral Monte Carlo sampling method. A qualitative change in the calculated spectra has been observed at N=9, which has been interpreted in terms of a structural transformation in the clusters consisting in a transition from trimer-like ionic cores observed for N≤7 to dimer-like ionic cores prevailing in through an intermediate state (comparable abundances of both types of ionic cores) observed in . The calculated spectra have been thoroughly compared with an earlier calculation on , , and reported from our group and data available for the same cluster sizes from an experiment.     

Fluorine Substitution of TCNQ Alters the Redox-Driven Catalytic Pathway for the Ferricyanide-Thiosulfate Reaction

Mechanistic variation in catalysis through substituent-based redox tuning is well established. Fluorination of TCNQ (TCNQ=tetracyanoquinodimethane) provides ~850 mV variation in the redox potentials of the and (n=0, 2, 4) processes. With , catalysis of the kinetically very slow ferrocyanide-thiosulfate redox reaction in aqueous solution occurs via a mechanism in which the catalyst is reduced to when reacting with which is oxidised to . Subsequently, reacts with to form and reform the catalyst, in another thermodynamically favoured process. An analogous mechanism applies with as a catalyst. In contrast, since the reaction of with is thermodynamically unfavourable, an alternative mechanism is required to explain the catalytic activity observed in this non-fluorinated system. Here, upon addition of , reduction of to occurs with concomitant oxidation of to , which then acts as the catalyst for oxidation. Thermodynamic data explain the observed differences in the catalytic mechanisms. (n=0, 4) also act as catalysts for the ferricyanide-thiosulfate reaction in aqueous solution. The present study shows that homogeneous pathways are available following addition of these dissolved materials. Previously, these (n=0, 4) coordination polymers have been regarded as insoluble in water and proposed as heterogeneous catalysts for the ferricyanide-thiosulfate reaction. Details and mechanistic differences were established using UV-visible spectrophotometry and cyclic voltammetry.     

Real-Space Interpretation of Interatomic Charge Transfer and Electron Exchange Effects by Combining Static and Kinetic Potentials and Associated Vector Fields**

Intricate behaviour of one-electron potentials from the Euler equation for electron density and corresponding gradient force fields in crystals was studied. Channels of locally enhanced kinetic potential and corresponding saddle Lagrange points were found between chemically bonded atoms. Superposition of electrostatic and kinetic potentials and electron density allowed partitioning any molecules and crystals into atomic - and potential-based -basins; -basins explicitly account for the electron exchange effect, which is missed for -ones. Phenomena of interatomic charge transfer and related electron exchange were explained in terms of space gaps between zero-flux surfaces of - and -basins. The gap between - and -basins represents the charge transfer, while the gap between - and -basins is a real-space manifestation of sharing the transferred electrons caused by the static exchange and kinetic effects as a response against the electron transfer. The regularity describing relative positions of -, -, and - basin boundaries between interacting atoms was proposed. The position of -boundary between - and -ones within an electron occupier atom determines the extent of transferred electron sharing. The stronger an H⋅⋅⋅O hydrogen bond is, the deeper hydrogen atom's -basin penetrates oxygen atom's -basin, while for covalent bonds a -boundary closely approaches a -one indicating almost complete sharing of the transferred electrons. In the case of ionic bonds, the same region corresponds to electron pairing within the -basin of an electron occupier atom.     

Potential of AMnO3 (A=Ca,Sr, Ba,La) as Active Layer in Inorganic Perovskite Solar Cells

Inorganic perovskite CaMnO was proposed as a substitution for the TiO anatase in electron transport layers of solar cells containing the hybrid perovskite CH NH PbI based on increased mobility of electrons and better optical matching. Due to a suitable band gap concerning the absorption of sunlight, we investigate the potential of CaMnO and similar manganite perovskites, where Ca is replaced by either Sr, Ba or La, as an absorber layer in inorganic perovskite solar cells. In this study, we have used optical measurements on the synthesized AMnO (A=Ca, Sr, Ba, La) samples to aid density functional theory calculations (DFT) in order to accurately simulate the electronic and optical properties of AMnO compounds and gauge their potential for the role of absorber layer. Both experimental measurements and theoretical calculations show suitable band gap of 1.1-1.5 eV, depending on the compound, and absorption coefficients of the order of cm in the visible part of the spectrum.     

On the accurate estimation of free energies using the jarzynski equality

The Jarzynski equality is one of the most widely celebrated and scrutinized nonequilibrium work theorems, relating free energy to the external work performed in nonequilibrium transitions. In practice, the required ensemble average of the Boltzmann weights of infinite nonequilibrium transitions is estimated as a finite sample average, resulting in the so-called Jarzynski estimator, . Alternatively, the second-order approximation of the Jarzynski equality, though seldom invoked, is exact for Gaussian distributions and gives rise to the Fluctuation-Dissipation estimator . Here we derive the parametric maximum-likelihood estimator (MLE) of the free energy considering unidirectional work distributions belonging to Gaussian or Gamma families, and compare this estimator to . We further consider bidirectional work distributions belonging to the same families, and compare the corresponding bidirectional to the Bennett acceptance ratio () estimator. We show that, for Gaussian unidirectional work distributions, is in fact the parametric MLE of the free energy, and as such, the most efficient estimator for this statistical family. We observe that and perform better than and , for unidirectional and bidirectional distributions, respectively. These results illustrate that the characterization of the underlying work distribution permits an optimal use of the Jarzynski equality. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Efficient singular-value decomposition of the coupled-cluster triple excitation amplitudes

We demonstrate a novel technique to obtain singular-value decomposition (SVD) of the coupled-cluster triple excitations amplitudes, . The presented method is based on the Golub-Kahan bidiagonalization strategy and does not require to be stored. The computational cost of the method is comparable to several coupled cluster singles and doubles (CCSD) iterations. Moreover, the number of singular vectors to be found can be predetermined by the user and only those singular vectors which correspond to the largest singular values are obtained at convergence. We show how the subspace of the most important singular vectors obtained from an approximate triple amplitudes tensor can be used to solve equations of the CC3 method. The new method is tested for a set of small and medium-sized molecular systems in basis sets ranging in quality from double- to quintuple-zeta. It is found that to reach the chemical accuracy (≈1 kJ/mol) in the total CC3 energies as little as 5 − 15% of SVD vectors are required. This corresponds to the compression of the amplitudes by a factor of about 0.0001 − 0.005 . Significant savings are obtained also in calculation of interaction energies or rotational barriers, as well as in bond-breaking processes. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

How does the pH influences the Ru-NO coordination compounds?

The pH influence has important role in the bioavailability of coordination compounds. fac-[Ru(NO)Cl₂(κ³N⁴,N⁸,N¹¹[1-carboxypropyl]cyclam)]⁺, 1 , and the species found at different pHs, 2 - 4 , were investigated. One series of computational methodologies has been used to investigate these compounds. One special highlight is to interacting quantum atoms method, where the total interaction energy, , between two atoms has been used as base to estimate the chemical bonds strength. The deprotonation of -CO₂H, 1 ➔ 2 (pK_a = 3.3), creates a hydrogen bond in the complex 2 , N( 3 )-H⋯ ·OCO⁻, with a more favorable than the presents in 1 , N( 3 )-H⋯ ·OCOH. There are no changes in in Ru-NO bond. The second deprotonation occurs in the N(2) atom of the cyclam group, 2 ➔ 3 (pK_a = 8.0). It promotes an increase in the covalent character of Ru-N( 2 ). In contrast, there is no changes in Ru-N( 5 )O bond. For higher pHs, there is a 3 ➔ 4 equilibrium (pK_a = 11.5) and the conversion of Ru-N( 5 )O for Ru-N( 5 )O₂. The Ru-N( 5 ) of 4 shows a larger ionic character than 3 . Thus, Ru-NO in 1 - 4 has worthy stability about a large pH range, showing potential application as NO scavengers.     

Temperature Dependence of 1H Paramagnetic Chemical Shifts in Actinide Complexes,Beyond Bleaney's Theory: The AnVIO22+–Dipicolinic Acid Complexes (An=Np,Pu) as an Example

Actinide +VI complexes ( = , and ) with dipicolinic acid derivatives were synthesized and characterized by powder XRD, SQUID magnetometry and NMR spectroscopy. In addition, and complexes were described by first principles CAS based and two-component spin-restricted DFT methods. The analysis of the ¹H paramagnetic NMR chemical shifts for all protons of the ligands according to the X-rays structures shows that the Fermi contact contribution is negligible in agreement with spin density determined by unrestricted DFT. The magnetic susceptibility tensor is determined by combining SQUID, pNMR shifts and Evans’ method. The SO-RASPT2 results fit well the experimental magnetic susceptibility and pNMR chemical shifts. The role of the counterions in the solid phase is pointed out; their presence impacts the magnetic properties of the complex. The temperature dependence of the pNMR chemical shifts has a strong contribution, contrarily to Bleaney's theory for lanthanide complexes. The fitting of the temperature dependence of the pNMR chemical shifts and SQUID magnetic susceptibility by a two-Kramers-doublet model for the complex and a non-Kramers-doublet model for the complex allows for the experimental evaluation of energy gaps and magnetic moments of the paramagnetic center.