Quantum chemistry

Classification and Analysis of Excited States

Felix

A new book chapter by Patrick and Felix just appeared online: “Classification and Analysis of Molecular Excited States“. Ultimately, this chapter will be part of the Comprehensive Computational Chemistry series published by Elsevier.

In this chapter we explore the various ways in which excited states are classified, that is, according to

  • the molecular orbitals involved,
  • valence bond resonance structures,
  • spatial and spin symmetry,
  • more fundamental wavefunction properties (double excitations, correlation, etc),
  • excited-state aromaticity, and
  • delocalisation and charge transfer.

The map below shows the different classes and highlights the multitude of ways that are used to discuss excited states in the literature.

It is the purpose of this chapter to discuss all these types of states, covering the mathematical and physical background as well as the consequences to spectroscopy and photochemistry.

Paper: Multireference Approaches for Excited States

Felix

We just published a comprehensive and quite voluminous review paper about “Multireference Approaches for Excited States of Molecules”  in Chemical Reviews. The paper covers the major methods used nowadays, such as CASSCF, multireference (MR) configuration interaction, MR perturbation theory, and MR coupled cluster. It discusses the application of semiempirical Hamiltonians as well as connections to DFT. The emerging algorithms DMRG and full-CI Quantum Monte Carlo are included as well. The theory of gradients as well as MR diagnostics and wavefunction analysis are discussed. The presented applications include a variety of cases starting from diatomics and going to complexes and dimers.

For a more detailed discussion of the paper, visit barbatti.org. For download options, see below.

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