Nodeless valence (pseudo)spinors

Atomic calculations using small-core relativistic effective core potentials (RECPs) explicitly treating outer core electrons are used to define two-component nodeless valence spinors (NVSs) and nodeless valence pseudospinors (NVPSs). Errors attributable to nonlocal electron repulsion interactions that arise from large-core RECPs are shown to result from the inherent arbitrariness in the choice of match points and number of derivatives that define shape-consistent pseudospinors, as well as the positions of radial nodes that reside in the outer core regions of atoms. Self-consistent field calculations in omegaomega-coupling for InH and InCl using RECPs derived from NVSs and NVPSs are reported. Increased bond distances relative to those calculated using very-large-core RECPs for In agree with those due to frozen 4d(3/2) and 4d(5/2) spinors and a small-core RECP. Results for AmCl+2 also reveal that the shortening in the bond length is recovered when the very-large-core RECP is derived using nodeless valence (pseudo)spinors.     

A study of the valence interaction integrals in effective core potential applications

The valence interactions in two effective core potential (ECP) methods, the frozen orbital ECP and the method of Sakai and Huzinaga, are shown to yield atomic valence orbital Coulomb and exchange interaction integrals closely approximating all-electron calculations. The ECP approximation is studied in some detail with special application to the ScO molecule. The too short bond distance in ScO when the 3s. 3p orbitals are included in the core is shown to stem from a long-range attraction of the ECP.     

On the use of effective core potentials in the calculation of magnetic properties, such as magnetizabilites and magnetic shieldings

State-of-the art effective core potentials (ECPs) that replace electrons of inner atomic cores involve non-local potentials. If such an effective core potential is added to the Hamiltonian of a system in a magnetic field, the resulting Hamiltonian is not gauge invariant. This means, magnetic properties such as magnetisabilities and magnetic shieldings (or magnetic susceptibilities and nuclear magnetic resonance chemical shifts) calculated with different gauge origins are different even for exact solutions of the Schro?dinger equation. It is possible to restore gauge invariance of the Hamiltonian by adding magnetic field dependent terms arising from the effective core potential. Numerical calculations on atomic and diatomic model systems (potassium mono-cation and potassium dimer) clearly demonstrate that the standard effective core potential Hamiltonian violates gauge invariance, and this affects the calculation of magnetisabilities more strongly than the calculation of magnetic shieldings. The modified magnetic field dependent effective core potential Hamiltonian is gauge invariant, and therefore it is the correct starting point for distributed gauge origin methods. The formalism for gauge including atomic orbitals (GIAO) and individual gauge for localized orbitals methods is worked out. ECP GIAO results for the potassium dimer are presented. The new method performs much better than a previous ECP GIAO implementation that did not account for the non-locality of the potential. For magnetic shieldings, deviations are clearly seen, but they amount to few ppm only. For magnetisabilities, our new ECP GIAO implementation is a major improvement, as demonstrated by the comparison of all-electron and ECP results.     

Dissociation energy of ekaplutonium fluoride E126F: the first diatomic with molecular spinors consisting of g atomic spinors

Our ab initio all-electron fully relativistic Dirac-Fock (DF) and nonrelativistic (NR) Hartree-Fock (HF) self-consistent field (SCF) calculations predict the superheavy diatomic ekaplutonium fluoride E126F to be bound with the calculated dissociation energy of 7.44 and 10.46 eV at the predicted E126-F bond lengths of 2.03 and 2.18 Angstroms, respectively. The antibinding effects of relativity to the dissociation energy of E126F are approximately 3 eV. The predicted dissociation energy with both our NR HF and relativistic DF SCF wave functions is fairly large and is comparable to that for very stable diatomics. This is the first case, where in a diatomic, an atom has g orbital (l = 4) occupied in its ground state electronic configuration and such superheavy diatomics would have occupied molecular spinors (orbitals) consisting of g atomic spinors (orbitals). This opens up a whole new field of chemistry where g atomic spinors (orbitals) may be involved in electronic structure and chemical bonding of systems of superheavy elements with Z> or =122.     

Generalized relativistic effective core potential: Theoretical grounds

The generalized relativistic effective core potential (GRECP) method is analyzed from theoretical and computational points of view. The Hamiltonian in the frozen‐core approximation is compared with the Hamiltonian containing the GRECP operator. It is demonstrated that the GRECP operator can be derived from rather natural physical grounds and the procedure of the GRECP generation can be justified theoretically. The accuracy of the RECP approximations in the simulation of the interactions and densities in the valence and outer‐core regions is analyzed. The reliability of the simulation of the interaction with the inner‐core electrons removed from the calculations with the GRECP is also studied. The importance of additional nonlocal terms both with the potentials for the outer‐core pseudospinors and with the potentials depending on the occupation numbers of the outermost core shells in the expression for the GRECP operator is demonstrated in calculations on the Ag, Ba, Hg, Tl, and U atoms. The difference between the outer core and valence potentials was investigated. It is shown that in the valence region the two‐component pseudospinors coincide with the large components of four‐component spinors in calculations for the same configuration states with a very high accuracy. Problems of Gaussian approximation caused by rather singular shapes of the potentials are considered. To attain a required high accuracy of approximation of the numerical potentials by Gaussians, serious additional efforts were undertaken. ©1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Int J Quant Chem 71: 359–401, 1999     

Electronic structure of molecules using one-component wave functions and relativistic effective core potentials

A one-component approach to molecular electronic structure is discussed that includes the dominant relativistic effects on valence electrons and yet allows the use of the traditional quantum-chemistry techniques. The approach starts with one-component Cowan–Griffin relativistic orbitals that successfully incorporate the effects of the mass-velocity and Darwin terms present in more complicated wave functions such as the Dirac–Hartree–Fock. The approach then constructs “relativistic” effective core potentials (RECPS ) from these orbitals, and uses these to bring the relativistic effects into the molecular electronic calculations. The use of effective one-electron spin-orbit operators in conjunction with these one-component wave functions to include the effects of spin-orbit coupling is discussed. Applications to molecular systems involving heavy atoms and comparisons with available spectroscopic data on molecular geometries and excitation energies are presented. Finally, a new approach to the construction of RECPS encompassing the Hamiltonian and shapeconsistent approach is presented together with a novel analysis of the long-range behavior of the RECPS .     

Basis set selections for relativistic self-consistent field calculations

Practical methods of generating reliable and economic basis sets for relativistic self-consistent fields (RSCF) calculations are developed. Large component basis sets are generated from constrained optimizations of exponents in the nonrelativistic atomic calculations for light atoms. For heavy atoms, large component basis sets for inner core orbitals are generated by fitting numerical atomic spinors of Dirac-Hartree-Fock calculations with appropriate number of Slater-type functions. Small component basis sets are obtained by using the kinetic balance condition and other computational criteria. With judicious selections of the basis sets, virtual orbitals in RSCF calculations become very similar to those in nonrelativistic calculations, implying that relativistic virtual orbitals can be used in electron correlation calculations in the same manner as the conventional nonrelativistic virtual orbitals. It is also evident that the Koopmans' theorem is also valid in RSCF results.     

Variational optimization of effective atom centered potentials for molecular properties

In plane wave based electronic structure calculations the interaction of core and valence electrons is usually represented by atomic effective core potentials. They are constructed in such a way that the shape of the atomic valence orbitals outside a certain core radius is reproduced correctly with respect to the corresponding all-electron calculations. Here we present a method which, in conjunction with density functional perturbation theory, allows to optimize effective core potentials in order to reproduce ground-state molecular properties from arbitrarily accurate reference calculations within standard density functional calculations. We demonstrate the wide range of possible applications in theoretical chemistry of such optimized effective core potentials (OECPs) by means of two examples. We first use OECPs to tackle the link atom problem in quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) schemes proposing a fully automatized procedure for the design of link OECPs, which are designed in such a way that they minimally perturb the electronic structure in the QM region. In the second application, we use OECPs in two sample molecules (water and acetic acid) such as to reproduce electronic densities and derived molecular properties of hybrid (B3LYP) quality within general gradient approximated (BLYP) density functional calculations.     

Fully relativistic calculations of ThF4

Based on the results of first‐principles density functional theory calculations of the electronic structure of ThF₄ in solid state and molecular form, the study of the Th6p, 5f, 6d, 7s and F2s, 2p states was done. We used the fully relativistic cluster discrete variational method with the local exchange‐correlation potential. The hybridization of F2p and Th5f, 6d, 7s, 7p states in the valence molecular orbitals (VMOs) in the region 0–10 eV and of F2s and Th6p states in the inner valence molecular orbitals (IVMOs) in the region 10–50 eV was studied. The results of relativistic cluster calculations are compared with those obtained for ThF₄ molecule. The energies of ionization of VMOs and of IVMOs were evaluated on the basis of the ground‐state and Slater's transition‐state calculations. The MO energy levels provide a satisfactory interpretation of experimental photoelectron spectra. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Quantum Chem, 2010     

Core–Valence correlations and relativistic effects in heavy atoms for molecular applications

Theoretical core effective potential methods are widely used in valence-only electron molecular calculations. These methods, which imply the frozen-core approximation, work well for the elements of the righthand side of the periodic table but are often unrealistic for metallic elements with highly polarizable cores. For these atoms one has to consider the polarization of the cores under the influence of the electric field created by the valence electrons. Moreover, relativistic corrections must be added for heavy atoms. Various theoretical approaches of core–valence interactions (polarization and core–valence correlations) will be reviewed, with a special emphasis on practical methods of calculation. The problem of handling the relativistic effects will mainly be discussed within the two-component Pauli formalism. It will be shown that the Foldy–Wouthuysen transformation is not the unique way for deriving relativistic corrections and that the second-order Dirac equation also provides a good starting point for obtaining relativistic corrections. Analytical exact results are given for the hydrogen atom. The accuracy of this approach is tested on many-electron atoms and molecules. It is finally shown that the problem of the core-valence separation is relevant to the general methodology of effective Hamiltonians that seems to provide the best promising way for filling the gap between the semiempirical and purely theoretical ab initio methods.     

Relativistic correlation effects on the hyperfine structure and electric dipole transitions in Cs and Tl

A discrete numerical basis set is a versatile tool for many-body calculations. Here it is used to calculate second-order energy corrections and to construct approximate Brueckner orbitals for Cs and Tl in a relativistic framework. These orbitals, which often account for a large part of the correlation effects, are then used to evaluate the hyperfine structure and electric dipole transition matrix elements for a few low-lying states. The correlation effects were combined with the RPA diagrams, which account for the response of the orbitals to the external perturbation, and the results are compared with other calculations and with experiment. For Cs, the results are in good agreement with earlier work, whereas for the more complicated system Tl we find significantly larger contributions from the modification of the valence orbitals to approximate Brueckner orbitals.     

The error due to neglecting the core spin–orbit splitting in valence ZORA calculations with frozen core approximation and its elimination

In valence zeroth-order regular approximation (ZORA) calculations with frozen core approximation, when the basis set optimized to the related scalar relativistic ZORA calculations is used, neglecting the core spin–orbit splitting may result in additional basis set truncation errors. It is found that the error is negligible for most elements except the 6p-block elements. When the basis set is extended by a p-type STO function put on the 6p element atoms with the ζ value proper to 5p_1/2 orbitals, the error can be reduced to be negligible. The calculated atomic properties related to valence orbitals can be improved greatly by use of this extended basis set. The frozen core approximation calculations of some molecules containing Tl, Pb and Bi with closed shells show that neglecting the core spin–orbit splitting only slightly affects the calculated bond lengths and bond energies, and the calculated molecular property can also be improved slightly by use of the extended basis sets.     

Optimized Slater-type basis sets for the elements 1-118

Seven different types of Slater type basis sets for the elements H (Z = 1) up to E118 (Z = 118), ranging from a double zeta valence quality up to a quadruple zeta valence quality, are tested in their performance in neutral atomic and diatomic oxide calculations. The exponents of the Slater type functions are optimized for the use in (scalar relativistic) zeroth-order regular approximated (ZORA) equations. Atomic tests reveal that, on average, the absolute basis set error of 0.03 kcal/mol in the density functional calculation of the valence spinor energies of the neutral atoms with the largest all electron basis set of quadruple zeta quality is lower than the average absolute difference of 0.16 kcal/mol in these valence spinor energies if one compares the results of ZORA equation with those of the fully relativistic Dirac equation. This average absolute basis set error increases to about 1 kcal/mol for the all electron basis sets of triple zeta valence quality, and to approximately 4 kcal/mol for the all electron basis sets of double zeta quality. The molecular tests reveal that, on average, the calculated atomization energies of 118 neutral diatomic oxides MO, where the nuclear charge Z of M ranges from Z = 1-118, with the all electron basis sets of triple zeta quality with two polarization functions added are within 1-2 kcal/mol of the benchmark results with the much larger all electron basis sets, which are of quadruple zeta valence quality with four polarization functions added. The accuracy is reduced to about 4-5 kcal/mol if only one polarization function is used in the triple zeta basis sets, and further reduced to approximately 20 kcal/mol if the all electron basis sets of double zeta quality are used. The inclusion of g-type STOs to the large benchmark basis sets had an effect of less than 1 kcal/mol in the calculation of the atomization energies of the group 2 and group 14 diatomic oxides. The basis sets that are optimized for calculations using the frozen core approximation (frozen core basis sets) have a restricted basis set in the core region compared to the all electron basis sets. On average, the use of these frozen core basis sets give atomic basis set errors that are approximately twice as large as the corresponding all electron basis set errors and molecular atomization energies that are close to the corresponding all electron results. Only if spin-orbit coupling is included in the frozen core calculations larger errors are found, especially for the heavier elements, due to the additional approximation that is made that the basis functions are orthogonalized on scalar relativistic core orbitals.     

Relativistic pseudopotentional incorporating core/valence polarization and nonlocal effects

A relativistic pseudopotentional (RPP) for use in ab initio molecular electronic structure calculations is derived in the context of the relativistic effective core potential (REP) method of Lee et al. The resulting atom-specific RPP has salient features of the REP imbedded within it while retaining the form of a functional that is dynamically defined at runtime when used in calculations on molecules. The RPP is determined from Dirac-Fock wave functions for the isolated atom. Outer core two-electron interactions are incorporated into the RPP by means of variable coefficients that are defined in the context of the final molecular wave function. This form permits polarization of the outer core shells analogous to that occurring in all-electron molecular Hartree-Fock calculations while retaining these shells as part of the atomic pseudopotentional. Use of the RPP in post-Hartree-Fock molecular calculations permits the incorporation of core/valence correlation effects.     

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.     

Quasi-degenerate perturbation theory with general multiconfiguration self-consistent field reference functions

The quasi-degenerate perturbation theory (QDPT) with complete active space (CAS) self-consistent field (SCF) reference functions is extended to the general multiconfiguration (MC) SCF references functions case. A computational scheme that utilizes both diagrammatic and sum-over-states approaches is presented. The second-order effective Hamiltonian is computed for the external intermediate configurations (including virtual or/and core orbitals) by the diagrammatic approach and for internal intermediate configurations (including only active orbitals) by the configuration interaction matrix-based sum-over-states approach. The method is tested on the calculations of excitation energies of H(2)O, potential energy curves of LiF, and valence excitation energies of H(2)CO. The results show that the present method yields very close results to the corresponding CAS-SCF reference QDPT results and the available experimental values. The deviations from CAS-SCF reference QDPT values are less than 0.1 eV on the average for the excitation energies of H(2)O and less than 1 kcal/mol for the potential energy curves of LiF. In the calculation of the valence excited energies of H(2)CO, the maximum deviation from available experimental values is 0.28 eV.     

The nature of the chemical bond in UO2

The nature of the chemical bond in UO₂ was analyzed taking into account the X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) structure parameters of the valence and core electrons, as well as the relativistic discrete variation electronic structure calculation results for this oxide. The ionic/covalent nature of the chemical bond was determined for the UO₈ (D_4h) cluster, reflecting uranium's close environment in UO₂, and the U₁₃O₅₆ and U₆₃O₂₁₆ clusters, reflecting the bulk of solid uranium dioxide. The bar graph of the theoretical valence band (from 0 to ~35 eV) of XPS spectrum was built such that it was in satisfactory agreement with the experimental spectrum of a UO₂ single crystalline thin film. It was shown that unlike the crystal field theory results, the covalence effects in UO₂ are significant due to the strong overlap of the U 6p and U 5f atomic orbitals with the ligand orbitals, in addition to the U 6d atomic orbital (AO). A quantitative molecular orbital (MO) scheme for UO₂ was built. The contribution of the MO electrons to the chemical bond covalence component was evaluated on the basis of the bond population values. It was found that the electrons of inner valence molecular orbitals (IVMO) weaken the chemical bond formed by the electrons of outer valence molecular orbitals (OVMO) by 32% in UO₈ and by 25% in U₆₃O₂₁₆.     

Approximate molecular orbital theory: the ese mo formalism.: III. Parametrization for all- or valence-electron calculation using accurate STF bases for molecules containing 1st, 2nd,and 3rd row atoms. SO2 results

The key components of a completely theoretical parametrization of the essential-structural-elements molecular orbital (ESE MO) formalism using Slater-type AO basis in the LCAO SCF procedure are discussed. Special attention is paid to the problem of separability into core and valence parts of the total molecular wavefunction, including the case where valence functions strongly overlap neighbouring core orbitals. The use of Huzinaga and Cantu effective hamiltonian is proposed. The parametrization is tested in relation to the SO₂ molecules. The role of sulphur 3d functions in bonding as predicted by the present ESE MO calculations and ab initio calculations are compared. The present parametrization appears to adequately handle both the core/valence separation, and the diffuse higher valence sulphur 3d functions in this system.     

Valence : A Massively Parallel Implementation of the Variational Subspace Valence Bond Method

This work describes the software package, Valence , for the calculation of molecular energies using the variational subspace valence bond (VSVB) method. VSVB is an ab initio electronic structure method based on nonorthogonal orbitals. Important features of practical value include high parallel scalability, wave functions that can be constructed automatically by combining orbitals from previous calculations, and ground and excited states that can be modeled with a single configuration or determinant. The open-source software package includes tools to generate wave functions, a database of generic orbitals, example input files, and a library build intended for integration with other packages. We also describe the interface to an external software package, enabling the computation of optimized molecular geometries and vibrational frequencies. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Localization scheme for relativistic spinors

A new method to determine localized complex-valued one-electron functions in the occupied space is presented. The approach allows the calculation of localized orbitals regardless of their structure and of the entries in the spinor coefficient matrix, i.e., one-, two-, and four-component Kramers-restricted or unrestricted one-electron functions with real or complex expansion coefficients. The method is applicable to localization schemes that maximize (or minimize) a functional of the occupied spinors and that use a localization operator for which a matrix representation is available. The approach relies on the approximate joint diagonalization (AJD) of several Hermitian (symmetric) matrices which is utilized in electronic signal processing. The use of AJD in this approach has the advantage that it allows a reformulation of the localization criterion on an iterative 2 × 2 pair rotating basis in an analytical closed form which has not yet been described in the literature for multi-component (complex-valued) spinors. For the one-component case, the approach delivers the same Foster-Boys or Pipek-Mezey localized orbitals that one obtains from standard quantum chemical software, whereas in the multi-component case complex-valued spinors satisfying the selected localization criterion are obtained. These localized spinors allow the formulation of local correlation methods in a multi-component relativistic framework, which was not yet available. As an example, several heavy and super-heavy element systems are calculated using a Kramers-restricted self-consistent field and relativistic two-component pseudopotentials in order to investigate the effect of spin-orbit coupling on localization.