Molecule intrinsic minimal basis sets. II. Bonding analyses for Si4H6 and Si2 to Si10

The method, introduced in the preceding paper, for recasting molecular self-consistent field (SCF) or density functional theory (DFT) orbitals in terms of intrinsic minimal bases of quasiatomic orbitals, which differ only little from the optimal free-atom minimal-basis orbitals, is used to elucidate the bonding in several silicon clusters. The applications show that the quasiatomic orbitals deviate from the minimal-basis SCF orbitals of the free atoms by only very small deformations and that the latter arise mainly from bonded neighbor atoms. The Mulliken population analysis in terms of the quasiatomic minimal-basis orbitals leads to a quantum mechanical interpretation of small-ring strain in terms of antibonding encroachments of localized molecular-orbitals and identifies the origin of the bond-stretch isomerization in Si4H6. In the virtual SCF/DFT orbital space, the method places the qualitative notion of virtual valence orbitals on a firm basis and provides an unambiguous ab initio identification of the frontier orbitals.     

Minimal set of molecule-adapted atomic orbitals from maximum overlap criterion

The criterion of maximum overlap with the canonical free-atom orbitals is used to construct a minimal set of molecule-intrinsic orthogonal atomic orbitals that resemble the most their promolecular origins. Partial atomic charges derived from population analysis within representation of such molecule-adopted atomic orbitals are examined on example of first-row hydrides and compared with charges from other methods. The maximum overlap criterion is also utilized to approximate the exact free-atom orbitals obtained from ab initio calculations in any arbitrary basis set and the influence of the resulting fitted canonical atomic orbitals on properties of molecule-adopted atomic orbitals is briefly discussed.     

Extended floating spherical Gaussian basis sets for molecules. Alternative correlating orbitals for molecular energy calculations

A procedure previously described for representing large basis SCF results in terms of a smaller floating spherical Gaussian orbital (FSGO) basis set is generalized to apply to the virtual orbitals from the SCF calculation. This provides a method for systematically reducing the dimensions of the virtual space or replacing the virtual orbitals with a simpler, compact basis set. The method is illustrated by application to Lill.     

Intrinsic local constituents of molecular electronic wave functions. I. Exact representation of the density matrix in terms of chemically deformed and oriented atomic minimal basis set orbitals

A coherent, intrinsic, basis-set-independent analysis is developed for the invariants of the first-order density matrix of an accurate molecular electronic wavefunction. From the hierarchical ordering of the natural orbitals, the zeroth-order orbital space is deduced, which generates the zeroth-order wavefunction, typically an MCSCF function in the full valence space. It is shown that intrinsically embedded in such wavefunctions are elements that are local in bond regions and elements that are local in atomic regions. Basis-set-independent methods are given that extract and exhibit the intrinsic bond orbitals and the intrinsic minimal-basis quasi-atomic orbitals in terms of which the wavefunction can be exactly constructed. The quasi-atomic orbitals are furthermore oriented by a basis-set independent method (viz. maximization of the sum of the fourth powers of all off-diagonal density matrix elements) so as to exhibit clearly the chemical interactions. The unbiased nature of the method allows for the adaptation of the localized and directed orbitals to changing geometries. Contribution of the Mark S. Gordon 65th Birthday Fegtschrift Issue.     

An intrinsic localization procedure for active CAS SCF orbitals

An intrinsic localization criterion for the active (valence) orbitals of a CAS SCF wavefunction is presented. The localization criterion is based on minimization of the energy of a “perfect pairing” configuration. Equations for carrying out the localization in terms of an exponential transformation are developed. The technique can easily be incorporated into any MC SCF program. The CAS SCF wavefunction obtained using these localized active orbitals corresponds to a full VB calculation where the VB structures are built from orthogonal “molecule adapted minimal basis set atomic orbitals” and thus offers an interpretational advantage over the use of canonical CAS SCF orbitals. The method is applied to the 1,3-dipole, nitrone.     

Analysis of molecular orbital wave functions in terms of valence bond functions for molecular fragments. I. Theory

A method of expansion of molecular orbital wave functions into valence bond (VB ) functions is extended to molecular fragments. The wave function is projected onto a basis of mixed determinants, involving molecular orbitals as well as fragment atomic orbitals, and is further expressed as a linear combination of VB functions, characteristic of structural formulas of the fragment but whose remaining bonds are frozen. Structural weights for the fragment are deduced from this expression. Delocalized molecular orbitals are used as a startpoint, as they are after an ordinary SCF calculation. Wave functions of medium-sized molecules may be analyzed with reasonable storage requirements in a computer.     

Local orbitals by minimizing powers of the orbital variance

It is demonstrated that a set of local orthonormal Hartree-Fock (HF) molecular orbitals can be obtained for both the occupied and virtual orbital spaces by minimizing powers of the orbital variance using the trust-region algorithm. For a power exponent equal to one, the Boys localization function is obtained. For increasing power exponents, the penalty for delocalized orbitals is increased and smaller maximum orbital spreads are encountered. Calculations on superbenzene, C(60), and a fragment of the titin protein show that for a power exponent equal to one, delocalized outlier orbitals may be encountered. These disappear when the exponent is larger than one. For a small penalty, the occupied orbitals are more local than the virtual ones. When the penalty is increased, the locality of the occupied and virtual orbitals becomes similar. In fact, when increasing the cardinal number for Dunning's correlation consistent basis sets, it is seen that for larger penalties, the virtual orbitals become more local than the occupied ones. We also show that the local virtual HF orbitals are significantly more local than the redundant projected atomic orbitals, which often have been used to span the virtual orbital space in local correlated wave function calculations. Our local molecular orbitals thus appear to be a good candidate for local correlation methods.     

Ab initio calculation of maximum bond order hybrid orbitals

Summary The maximum bond order hybrid orbital (MBOHO) procedure is tested onab initio level by use of the density matrix in Löwdin orthogonalized atomic orbital basis. The direct MBOHO calculation based on the whole density matrix includes also the hybridization of the inner atomic orbitals, and the MBOHO calculation based on the valence orbital part of the density matrix considers only the hybridization of the valence atomic orbitals. The concrete MBOHO calculations based on theab initio calculation with STO-3G basis show that the components of the s atomic orbitals in MBOHOs and the maximum bond orders obtained from the two kinds of MBOHO calculations are very close to each other, and that the two kinds of MBOHOs all have the excellent correlativity with the nuclear spin-spin coupling constants.The project supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Excellent Young University Teacher's Foundation of State Education Commission of China.     

Molecular states of atoms. I. Orbital energy parameters

Atomic valence state energies are analyzed to obtain values of orbital energy parameters that may be used in semiempirical molecular orbital calculations. Difficulty in defining the interaction between orbitals with non-integer electron populations is systematically avoided by distinguishing between a valence state and a molecular state of an atom, only the latter state having non-integer spin paired orbital occupancy. Application of the virial theorem to the molecular state enables a value for the orbital kinetic energy to be obtained from the valence state orbital energy parameters once an arbitrary configuration is defined as reference. The orbitals then are eigenfunctions of the atomic Fock operator for that reference molecular state and, with their energy parameters, may be employed as a fixed basis set for molecular orbital calculations.     

The use of population localised orbitals to interpret molecular orbital calculations

An efficient and general method is derived to calculate population localised molecular orbitals (LMO's) from a given SCF eigenvector matrix, by reduction to an eigenvalue problem. Applications to both localised molecules (NH₃ and C₂H₂) and delocalised ones (B₂H₆, C₆H₆ and butadiene) are discussed in some detail. It is shown that unequal occupation of atomic energy levels leads to non-orthogonal LMO's. The consequences of non-orthogonal atomic hybrid orbitals are discussed, formulas for their overlap in terms of atomic occupation numbers are derived and it is shown that the occupation numbers are connected to LMO atomic orbital coefficients by various sum rules.     

Localized orbitals based on the fermi hole

The Fermi hole provides a direct (non-iterative) method for tansforming canonical SCF molecular orbitals into localized orbitals. Except for simple overlap integrals required to maintain orthogonality, this method requires no integrals over orbitals or basis functions. This method is demonstrated by application to a furanone (C₄H₄O₂), methylacetylene, and boron trifluoride. The results of these calculations are compared to those determined by the orbital centroid criterion of localization.     

Are atoms sic to molecular electronic wavefunctions? II. Analysis of fors orbitals

Electronic wavefunctions that describe molecules in the full optimized reaction space (FORS) are multiconfigurational wavefunctions which are invariant under non-singular linear transformations of the occupied molecular orbitals. They offer therefore a considerably wider scope for orbital interpretations than the single-configuration Hartree-Fock approximation. For example they can be analyzed in terms of natural MOs and in terms of localized MOs. The latter turn out to be remarkably atomic in character and a new localization procedure can be formulated which yields atom-adapted molecular orbitals. These have the character of minimal-basis-set AOs that are optimally adapted to the molecular environment and furnish an unambigious atomic population analysis. On the other hand, chemically adapted molecular orbitals can be defined by an appropriate compromise between natural orbitals and localized orbitals. The freedom to use, as configuration-generating molecular orbitals, atom-adapted FORS MOs as well as chemically adapted FORS MOs makes FORS wavefunctions particularly suitable for chemical interpretations. The ensuing analysis establishes the minimal basis set (in molecule-adapted form) as a theoretically sound concept for the understanding of accurate molecular wavefunctions. An illustrative example is discussed.     

Fast localized orthonormal virtual orbitals which depend smoothly on nuclear coordinates

We present here an algorithm for computing stable, well-defined localized orthonormal virtual orbitals which depend smoothly on nuclear coordinates. The algorithm is very fast, limited only by diagonalization of two matrices with dimension the size of the number of virtual orbitals. Furthermore, we require no more than quadratic (in the number of electrons) storage. The basic premise behind our algorithm is that one can decompose any given atomic-orbital (AO) vector space as a minimal basis space (which includes the occupied and valence virtual spaces) and a hard-virtual (HV) space (which includes everything else). The valence virtual space localizes easily with standard methods, while the hard-virtual space is constructed to be atom centered and automatically local. The orbitals presented here may be computed almost as quickly as projecting the AO basis onto the virtual space and are almost as local (according to orbital variance), while our orbitals are orthonormal (rather than redundant and nonorthogonal). We expect this algorithm to find use in local-correlation methods.     

An efficient self-consistent field method for large systems of weakly interacting components

An efficient method for removing the self-consistent field (SCF) diagonalization bottleneck is proposed for systems of weakly interacting components. The method is based on the equations of the locally projected SCF for molecular interactions (SCF MI) which utilize absolutely localized nonorthogonal molecular orbitals expanded in local subsets of the atomic basis set. A generalization of direct inversion in the iterative subspace for nonorthogonal molecular orbitals is formulated to increase the rate of convergence of the SCF MI equations. Single Roothaan step perturbative corrections are developed to improve the accuracy of the SCF MI energies. The resulting energies closely reproduce the conventional SCF energy. Extensive test calculations are performed on water clusters up to several hundred molecules. Compared to conventional SCF, speedups of the order of (N/O)2 have been achieved for the diagonalization step, where N is the size of the atomic orbital basis, and O is the number of occupied molecular orbitals.     

磷的d轨道在H~3PO分子中的作用

用分子片轨道在分子环境中发生极化的概念研究d轨道在H~3PO分子中的作用。H~3PO分子被分为两个分子片---H~3P和O.在RHF/6-31G^*水平上计算出分子环境中的极化了的分子片轨道(FOM)。再剔除d函数为主的FOM,用剩余的FOM为基进行构型优化,得到与RHF/6-31G^*相近的结果。这一结果说明磷原子的d函数在H~3PO分子中仅仅起一个极化函数的作用,而不是起价轨道作用。     

Why is there a molecular relativistic effect?

The almost exclusive association of the molecular geometry dependence of the relativistic correction with the valence orbital contribution to the mass-velocity and Darwin terms is investigated using SCF and MCSCF wavefunctions. The requirement of orthogonality of the valence orbitals to the core orbitals is confirmed to be the mechanism responsible for the increase in (the absolute value of) relativistic energy upon decrease of the internuclear distance. Certain “fingerprint”-type features of the valence relativistic correction, revealing the identity of the particular core orbital giving rise to it, are identified.     

Large-scale RPA calculations of chiroptical properties of organic molecules: Program RPAC

The computational considerations involved in calculating ordinary and rotatory intensities and electronic excitation energies in the random phase approximation (RPA ) are examined. We employ a localized orbital formulation in order to analyze the results in terms of local and charge-transfer excitations. Occupied orbitals are localized by the Foster–Boys procedure. The virtual space is transformed into a localized “valence” set that maximizes dipole strengths with the occupied counterparts, and a delocalized remainder. The two-electron integral transformation is performed with an efficient algorithm, based on Diercksen's, that generates only the particle–hole-type integrals required in the RPA . The lowest solutions of the RPA equations are obtained iteratively using a modification of the Davidson-Liu simultaneous vector expansion method. This allows the inclusion of the entire set of particle–hole states supported by a basis set of up to 102 orbitals. Calculations at this level give better excitation energies and intensities than SDCI methods, at substantial savings in computational effort. Comparative timings, computed results and analysis in terms of localized orbitals are given for planar and distorted ethylene using extended atomic orbital bases including diffuse functions. The results for planar ethylene are in excellent agreement with experiment.     

An approximate frozen core approach to valence only molecular calculations

A simple valence electron-only theory based on an approximate frozen core approach and an exact core-valence strong orthogonality condition is developed for atomic and molecular systems. A unique reduced basis is introduced in which both core and valence orbitals are expanded. The core representation is roughly approximated, and the valence orbital overlap with the corresponding all-electron reference functions is nearly exact. The size of the reduced basis in terms of primitive functions is practically the same as that adopted by effective core potential methods in which the valence orbitals have the correct nodal properties. Results obtained with the present approach are presented for LiO, BeO and CaO molecules, and compared with the corresponding all-electron frozen core calculations. In addition, a detailed investigation on Li _n Be clusters (n=1,..., 6) is carried out.Dedicated to Professor J. Koutecký on the occasion of his 65th birthday