Bonding and (hyper)polarizability in the sodium dimer

We report a conventional ab initio and density functional theory study of the polarizability (alpha(alphabeta)/e(2)a(0) (2)E(h) (-1)) and hyperpolarizability (gamma(alphabetagammadelta)/e(4)a(0) (4)E(h) (-3)) of the sodium dimer. A large [18s14p9d2f1g] basis set is thought to yield near-Hartree-Fock values for both properties: alpha=272.28, Deltaalpha=127.22 and gamma=2157.6 x 10(3) at R(e)=3.078 87 A. Electron correlation has a remarkable effect on the Cartesian components of gamma(alphabetagammadelta). Our best value for the mean is gamma=1460.1 x 10(3). The (hyper)polarizability shows very strong bond-length dependence. The effect is drastically different for the longitudinal and transverse components of the hyperpolarizability. The following first derivatives were extracted from high-level coupled cluster calculations: (dalpha/dR)(e)=54.1, (dDeltaalpha/dR)(e)=88.1e(2)a(0)E(h) (-1), and (dgamma/dR)(e)=210 x 10(3)e(4)a(0) (3)E(h) (-3). We associate the (hyper)polarizability to bonding effects between the two sodium atoms by introducing the differential property per atom Q(diff)/2 identical with (Q[Na(2)(X (1)Sigma(g) (+))]/2-Q[Na((2)S)]). The differential (hyper)polarizability per atom is predicted to be strongly negative for the dimer at R(e), as [alpha(Na(2))/2-alpha(Na)]=-33.8 and [gamma(Na(2))/2-gamma(Na)]=-226.3 x 10(3). The properties calculated with the widely used B3LYP and B3PW91 density functional methods differ significantly. The B3PW91 results are in reasonable agreement with the conventional ab initio values. Last, we observe that low-level ab initio and density functional theory methods underestimate the dipole polarizability anisotropy. Experimental data on this important property are highly desirable.