Theoretical study on the Cope rearrangement mechanisms and the homoaromaticity of semibullvalene,barbaralane, and 1,5‐methanosemibullvalene

Cope rearrangement mechanisms and the homoaromaticity of semibullvalene, barbaralane, and 1,5‐methanosemibullvalene in the ground and lowest excited states were studied by ab initio methods. In the ground state, the rearrangement reactions of semibullvalene and barbaralane occurred concertedly through the transition states with C_2v symmetry, and the transition states had a homoaromatic nature. In particular, the transition state of barbaralane exhibited the strongest homoaromaticity among the three systems treated here. On the other hand, for 7,8‐methanosemibullvalene, the structure with C_2v symmetry was not a transition state but one with a stable energy minimum. The energy minimum structure with C_2v symmetry had a biradical character. The lowest excited states of semibullvalene and barbaralane were the excitation to the σ* anti‐orbital, ¹B₂ and ¹B₁ states, and led to near di‐allyl states. The lowest excitation state of 1,5‐methanosemibullvalene had C_s symmetry and was the A″ state excitation in one side of two allyl parts. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.