The loge theory as a starting point for variational calculations. I. General formalism

It is shown that any expectation value of any observable associated with a molecule is the sum of loge contributions and of loge pair contributions. This result provides a rigorous theoretical basis for the study of additive properties of molecules. It is demonstrated that molecular wave functions (exact or approximate) can be expressed as a sum of functions corresponding to the various electronic events. Furthermore any of these event functions can be expressed in terms of correlated loge functions. This expression suggests many kinds of variational procedures of calculating wave functions (known methods and new ones). The case in which noncorrelated completely localized loge functions are used is discussed. If continuous functions are used the variational equation reduces to a sum of independent variational equations, each one corresponding to a particular electronic event. This is not so when discontinuous functions are used or when a delocalized function is added to replace the correlation interloge function. The noncorrelated completely localized loge model is analyzed in more detail. It is seen that local spin operators can be introduced and that each event density operator is the product of the loge density operators. Therefore that model is an independent loge model. The corresponding generalized self-consistent field equations are derived. This treatment helps us to understand how a localized state of a molecule can produce an ion containing a delocalized region, a phenomenon which is sometimes at the origin of some misunderstanding in photoelectron spectroscopy. Finally it is seen how virtual loge functions can be introduced to describe excited states.     

The electronic correlation problem and loge localization

The model of complete loge localization is employed here to develop a practical method for handling correlation effects in atomic and molecular many electron systems. Intraloge correlation is dealt with by an independent variational treatment of pair functions which are continuous and vanish outside a given loge. It is shown that in the context of the model it is possible to compute pair correlation energies for localized single and double bonds in molecules by evaluating only modified atomic integrals. We bypass in this manner the evaluation of multicenter integrals necessary in other formalisms. In addition, the corrections to the model are discussed and in particular it is shown that part of the interloge correlation effects are already described by the loge localized wave function.     

Methods of composite molecular wave functions. I. Variational principle and multiconfiguration SCF theory

The Silverstone–Stuebing variational principle for the discontinuous wave functions of one-electron systems is generalized for many-electron systems. The variational functional of energy takes real or complex value. The condition that it is real is given. Using the generalized variational principle, a multiconfiguration SCF theory for the composite molecular wave function is formulated. According to the theory, we may divide the whole space into space-filling cells, solve the SCF equations in each cell and build up the wave functions of the system by gathering the wave functions obtained in the cells. For use in the basis-set expansion method, the SCF equations are rewritten as matrix forms in which only one- and two-center integrals appear if an expansion center is located in each cell.     

Exciton-phonon self-trapping: A continuous transition

An exciton-phonon system of a linear aggregate is investigated in the intermediate-coupling regime. For sufficiently large intermolecular coupling. the variational approach predicts a discontinuous transition from a mobile exciton at weak exciton-phonon coupling to an immobile exciton at strong coupling. Fully converged numerical calculations exhibit strong deviations from the variational approach at intermediate exciton-phonon coupling strength and do not show a discontinuous transition. In the strong-coupling regime, results from the variational approach (which are closely related to the small polaron theory) deviate considerably from numerically converged calculations and an appropriate perturbation approximation.     

LocalSCF method for semiempirical quantum-chemical calculation of ultralarge biomolecules

A linear-scaling semiempirical method, LocalSCF, has been proposed for the quantum-chemical calculations of ultralarge molecular systems by treating the large-scale molecular task as a variational problem. The method resolves the self-consistent field task through the finite atomic expansion of weakly nonorthogonal localized molecular orbitals. The inverse overlap matrix arising from the nonorthogonality of the localized orbitals is approximated by preserving the first-order perturbation term and applying the second-order correction by means of a penalty function. This allows for the separation of the orbital expansion procedure from the self-consistent field optimization of linear coefficients, thereby maintaining the localized molecular orbital size unchanged during the refinement of linear coefficients. Orbital normalization is preserved analytically by the variation of virtual degrees of freedom, which are orthogonal to the initial orbitals. Optimization of linear coefficients of localized orbitals is performed by a gradient procedure. The computer program running on a commodity personal computer was applied to the GroEL-GroES chaperonin complex containing 119,273 atoms.     

Parallel, linear-scaling building-block and embedding method based on localized orbitals and orbital-specific basis sets

We present a linear scaling method for the energy minimization step of semiempirical and first-principles Hartree-Fock and Kohn-Sham calculations. It is based on the self-consistent calculation of the optimum localized orbitals of any localization method of choice and on the use of orbital-specific basis sets. The full set of localized orbitals of a large molecule is seen as an orbital mosaic where each tessera is made of only a few of them. The orbital tesserae are computed out of a set of embedded cluster pseudoeigenvalue coupled equations which are solved in a building-block self-consistent fashion. In each iteration, the embedded cluster equations are solved independently of each other and, as a result, the method is parallel at a high level of the calculation. In addition to full system calculations, the method enables to perform simpler, much less demanding embedded cluster calculations, where only a fraction of the localized molecular orbitals are variational while the rest is frozen, taking advantage of the transferability of the localized orbitals of a given localization method between similar molecules. Monitoring single point energy calculations of large poly(ethylene oxide) molecules and three dimensional carbon monoxide clusters using an extended Huckel Hamiltonian are presented.     

Molecular MC–SCF calculations

A practical method for finding multi-configurational SCF wave functions is proposed. The basic equation is equivalent to the Brillouin theorem; comparison with the usual SCF equations obtained through effective hamiltonians gives an interpretation of the offdiagonal Lagrange multipliers. Numerical applications to Formaldehyde in a minimum Slater-type orbital basis with four different variational wave functions are reported. The molecular orbitals found in these calculations are localized on the chemical bonds. The largest contributions to the energy are obtained from π-π and dispersion-type σ-π correlation.     

Using group (or Loge) functions to explore the transferability of chemical bonds

The transferability of bonds in a set of small molecules has been explored. The molecular wave-functions have been calculated from the group (or loge) function method, via a construction based on Gaussian functions. The transferability is very good and the effect of lone pairs on adjacent bonds has been analysed. Furthermore, a very simple procedure has been proposed to estimate the frontiers of the bonds.     

Local configuration interaction: An efficient approach for larger molecules

The first full implementation of the localized configuration interaction technique at the variational CI, CEPA-2 and variational CEPA levels is described. Timings are presented for a double-zeta plus polarization calculation on butadiene. The restriction of the correlation space to local basis functions results in a spectacular enhancement of the efficiency of the CI loop. The loss in the correlation energy is only a few percent; we argue that most of the loss is due to the exclusion of intramolecular basis set superposition artifacts.     

Stability criterion for organic ferromagnetism

Stability criterion for organic ferromagnetism is derived from crystal orbital method. For a given flat-band system, there exists a unique set of Wannier functions localized near each unit cell, which should be symmetric with respect to the lattice vector. The set of Wannier functions minimizes the exchange integral of the system within the freedom of degeneracy. When each Wannier function spans common atoms between the adjacent cells, the system becomes ferromagnetic. On the other hand, when each Wannier function spreads only at one unit cell, the system becomes antiferromagnetic. The proof of this rule is given by variational principle.     

Discontinuous molecular dynamics for rigid bodies: applications

Event-driven molecular dynamics simulations are carried out on two rigid-body systems which differ in the symmetry of their molecular mass distributions. First, simulations of methane in which the molecules interact via discontinuous potentials are compared with simulations in which the molecules interact through standard continuous Lennard-Jones potentials. It is shown that under similar conditions of temperature and pressure, the rigid discontinuous molecular dynamics method reproduces the essential dynamical and structural features found in continuous-potential simulations at both gas and liquid densities. Moreover, the discontinuous molecular dynamics approach is demonstrated to be between 3 and 100 times more efficient than the standard molecular dynamics method depending on the specific conditions of the simulation. The rigid discontinuous molecular dynamics method is also applied to a discontinuous-potential model of a liquid composed of rigid benzene molecules, and equilibrium and dynamical properties are shown to be in qualitative agreement with more detailed continuous-potential models of benzene. The few qualitative differences in the angular dynamics of the two models are related to the relatively crude treatment of variations in the discontinuous repulsive interactions as one benzene molecule rotates by another.     

Ionic exclusion phase transition in neutral and weakly charged cylindrical nanopores

A field theoretic variational approach is introduced to study ion penetration into water-filled cylindrical nanopores in equilibrium with a bulk reservoir [S. Buyukdagli, M. Manghi, and J. Palmeri, Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 158103 (2010)]. It is shown that an ion located in a neutral pore undergoes two opposing mechanisms: (i) a deformation of its surrounding ionic cloud of opposite charge, with respect to the reservoir, which increases the surface tension and tends to exclude ions from the pore, and (ii) an attractive contribution to the ion self-energy due to the increased screening with ion penetration of the repulsive image forces associated with the dielectric jump between the solvent and the pore wall. For pore radii around 1 nm and bulk concentrations lower than 0.2 mol/l, this mechanism leads to a first-order phase transition, similar to capillary "evaporation," from an ionic-penetration state to an ionic-exclusion state. The discontinuous phase transition exists within the biological concentration range (～0.15 mol/l) for small enough membrane dielectric constants (ε(m) < 5). In the case of a weakly charged pore, counterion penetration exhibits a nonmonotonic behavior and is characterized by two regimes: at low reservoir concentrations or small pore radii, coions are excluded and counterions enter the pore to enforce electroneutrality; dielectric repulsion (image forces) remain strong and the counterion partition coefficient decreases with increasing reservoir concentration up to a characteristic value. For larger reservoir concentrations, image forces are screened and the partition coefficient of counterions increases with the reservoir concentration, as in the neutral pore case. Large surface charge densities (>2 × 10(-3) e/nm(2)) suppress the discontinuous transition by reducing the energy barrier for ion penetration and shifting the critical point toward very small pore sizes and reservoir concentrations. Our variational method is also compared to a previous self-consistent approach and yields important quantitative corrections. The role of the curvature of dielectric interfaces is highlighted by comparing ionic penetration into slit and cylindrical pores. Finally, a charge regulation model is introduced in order to explain the key effect of pH on ionic exclusion and explain the origin of observed time-dependent nanopore electric conductivity fluctuations and their correlation with those of the pore surface charge.     

High-order discretization schemes for biochemical applications of boundary element solvation and variational electrostatic projection methods

A series of high-order surface element discretization schemes for variational boundary element methods are introduced. The surface elements are chosen in accord with angular quadrature rules for integration of spherical harmonics. Surface element interactions are modeled by Coulomb integrals between spherical Gaussian functions with exponents chosen to reproduce the exact variational energy and Gauss's law for a point charge in a spherical cavity. The present work allows high-order surface element expansions to be made for variational methods such as the conductorlike screening model for solvation and the variational electrostatic projection method for generalized solvent boundary potentials in molecular simulations.     

Extremely localized molecular orbitals (ELMO): a non-orthogonal Hartree-Fock method

A new optimization method for extremely localized molecular orbitals (ELMO) is derived in a non-orthogonal formalism. The method is based on a quasi Newton-Raphson algorithm in which an approximate diagonal-blocked Hessian matrix is calculated through the Fock matrix. The Hessian matrix inverse is updated at each iteration by a variable metric updating procedure to account for the intrinsically small coupling between the orbitals. The updated orbitals are obtained with approximately n ² operations. No n ³ processes such as matrix diagonalization, matrix multiplication or orbital orthogonalization are employed. The use of localized orbitals allows for the creation of high-quality initial “guess” orbitals from optimized molecular orbitals of small systems and thus reduces the number of iterations to converge. The delocalization effects are included by a Jacobi correction (JC) which allows the accurate calculation of the total energy with a limited number of operations. This extension, referred to as ELMO(JC), is a variational method that reproduces the Hartree-Fock (HF) energy with an error of less than 2 kcal/mol for a reduced total cost compared to standard HF methods. The small number of variables, even for a very large system, and the limited number of operations potentially makes ELMO a method of choice to study large systems. Received: 30 December 1996 / Accepted: 5 June 1997     

Second-order magnetic parameters of PH3 and P(CH3)3 and the magnetic isoscreening lines for P-H and P-C bonds

A variational method has been used with Gaussian orbitals to calculate the susceptibilities of localized P-H and P-C bonds in PH₃ and P(CH₃)₃. An additive scheme has been used with localized molecular fragments to determine the susceptibility and proton screening, where the values agree well with experiment. Diagrams for nuclear magnetic isoscreening lines for the P-H and P-C bonds have been calculated.Translated from Teoreticheskaya i Éksperimental'naya Khimiya, Vol. 22, No. 4, pp. 487–491, July–August, 1986.     

Evidence for phase space transitions in excited triatomic molecules

At high levels of vibrational excitation it is not realistic to examine the energy levels of molecules state by state. A more coarse grained measure is required. The use of the free energy is illustrated by application to a realistic model Hamiltonian for the stretch vibrations of triatomic molecules, both exact and variational (self-consistent) computations are reported. A transition from a localized to an equipartitioned distribution of energy (as a function of mean excitation energy) is noted and discussed.     

Variational Monte Carlo calculations for some cations and anions of the first‐row atoms using explicitly correlated wave functions

The variational Monte Carlo method is applied to calculate ground‐state energies of some cations and anions of the first‐row atoms. Accurate values providing between 80 and 90% of the correlation energy are obtained. Explicitly correlated wave functions including up to 42 variational parameters are used. The nondynamic correlation due to the 2s ? 2p near degeneracy effect is included by using a multideterminant wave function. The variational free parameters have been fixed by minimizing the energy that has shown to be a more convenient functional than the variance of the local energy, which is the most commonly employed method in variational Monte Carlo calculations. The energies obtained improve previous works using similar wave functions. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.; DOI 10.1002/qua.10125     

A variational principle in Wigner phase-space with applications to statistical mechanics

We consider the Dirac-Frenkel variational principle in Wigner phase-space and apply it to the Wigner-Liouville equation for both imaginary and real time dynamical problems. The variational principle allows us to deduce the optimal time-evolution of the parameter-dependent Wigner distribution. It is shown that the variational principle can be formulated alternatively as a "principle of least action." Several low-dimensional problems are considered. In imaginary time, high-temperature classical distributions are "cooled" to arrive at low-temperature quantum Wigner distributions whereas in real time, the coherent dynamics of a particle in a double well is considered. Especially appealing is the relative ease at which Feynman's path integral centroid variable can be incorporated as a variational parameter. This is done by splitting the high-temperature Boltzmann distribution into exact local centroid constrained distributions, which are thereafter cooled using the variational principle. The local distributions are sampled by Metropolis Monte Carlo by performing a random walk in the centroid variable. The combination of a Monte Carlo and a variational procedure enables the study of quantum effects in low-temperature many-body systems, via a method that can be systematically improved.