214 research outputs found
Overcoming systematic DFT errors for hydrocarbon reaction energies
Despite the widespread use and numerous successful applications of density functional theory, descriptions of hydrocarbon reaction energies remain problematic. Illustrative examples include large underestimation of energies associated with alkane bond separation reactions and poor general description of intramolecular dispersion in hydrocarbons (e.g., B3LYP, MAD=14.1kcalmolâ1). More recent, but not readily availably functionals, along with efficient posteriori corrections, not only show considerable improvement in the energy description of hydrocarbons but also help identify the sources of error in traditional DFT. Interactions in branched alkanes and compact hydrocarbons are adequately mimicked by systems compressed below their typical van der Waals distances. At these distances, standard DFT exchange functionals are overly repulsive for non-bonded density overlaps, and significant improvement is offered by the long-range corrected exchange functionals (e.g., LC-BLYP0.33, MAD=5.5kcalmolâ1). For those systems, the neglect of long-range dispersion is found to be a critical shortcoming, as well as "overlap dispersionâ, for which non-negligible amounts are captured by the correlation functional. Accounting for the missing dispersion interactions is of key importance. Accordingly, most noteworthy improvements over standard functionals are obtained by using non-local van der Waals density functionals (e.g., LC-S-VV09, MAD=3.6kcalmolâ1, rPW86-VV09, MAD=5.8kcalmolâ1), a dispersion corrected double hybrid (B2PLYP-D, MAD=2.5kcalmolâ1), or by the addition of an atom pairwise density-dependent dispersion correction to a standard functional (e.g., PBE-dDXDM, MAD=0.8kcalmolâ1). To a lesser extent, the reduction of the delocalization error (e.g., MCY3, MAD=6.3kcalmolâ1) or careful parameter fitting (e.g., M06-2X, MAD=5.6kcalmolâ1) also lowers the error
SPAM: the Spectrum of Approximated Hamiltonian Matrices representations
Physics-inspired molecular representations are the cornerstone of
similarity-based learning applied to solve chemical problems. Despite their
conceptual and mathematical diversity, this class of descriptors shares a
common underlying philosophy: they all rely on the molecular information that
determines the form of the electronic Schr\"odinger equation. Existing
representations take the most varied forms, from non-linear functions of atom
types and positions to atom densities and potential, up to complex quantum
chemical objects directly injected into the ML architecture. In this work, we
present the Spectrum of Approximated Hamiltonian Matrices (SPAM)
as an alternative pathway to construct quantum machine learning representations
through leveraging the foundation of the electronic Schr\"odinger equation
itself: the electronic Hamiltonian. As the Hamiltonian encodes all quantum
chemical information at once, SPAM representations not only
distinguish different molecules and conformations, but also different spin,
charge, and electronic states. As a proof of concept, we focus here on
efficient SPAM representations built from the eigenvalues of a
hierarchy of well-established and readily-evaluated "guess" Hamiltonians. These
SPAM representations are particularly compact and efficient for
kernel evaluation and their complexity is independent of the number of
different atom types in the database.Comment: 9 pages + SI (8 pages
A Transferable Machine-Learning Model of the Electron Density
The electronic charge density plays a central role in determining the
behavior of matter at the atomic scale, but its computational evaluation
requires demanding electronic-structure calculations. We introduce an
atom-centered, symmetry-adapted framework to machine-learn the valence charge
density based on a small number of reference calculations. The model is highly
transferable, meaning it can be trained on electronic-structure data of small
molecules and used to predict the charge density of larger compounds with low,
linear-scaling cost. Applications are shown for various hydrocarbon molecules
of increasing complexity and flexibility, and demonstrate the accuracy of the
model when predicting the density on octane and octatetraene after training
exclusively on butane and butadiene. This transferable, data-driven model can
be used to interpret experiments, initialize electronic structure calculations,
and compute electrostatic interactions in molecules and condensed-phase
systems
Overcoming systematic DFT errors for hydrocarbon reaction energies
Despite the widespread use and numerous successful applications of density functional theory, descriptions of hydrocarbon reaction energies remain problematic. Illustrative examples include large underestimation of energies associated with alkane bond separation reactions and poor general description of intramolecular dispersion in hydrocarbons (e.g., B3LYP, MAD = 14.1 kcal mol-1). More recent, but not readily availably functionals, along with efficient posteriori corrections, not only show considerable improvement in the energy description of hydrocarbons but also help identify the sources of error in traditional DFT. Interactions in branched alkanes and compact hydrocarbons are adequately mimicked by systems compressed below their typical van der Waals distances. At these distances, standard DFT exchange functionals are overly repulsive for non-bonded density overlaps, and significant improvement is offered by the long-range corrected exchange functionals (e.g., LC-BLYP0.33, MAD = 5.5 kcal mol-1). For those systems, the neglect of long-range dispersion is found to be a critical shortcoming, as well as ââoverlap dispersionââ, for which non-negligible amounts are captured by the correlation functional. Accounting for the missing dispersion interactions is of key importance. Accordingly, most noteworthy improvements over standard functionals are obtained by using non-local van der Waals density functionals (e.g., LC-S-VV09, MAD = 3.6 kcal mol-1, rPW86-VV09, MAD = 5.8 kcal mol-1), a dispersion corrected double hybrid (B2PLYP-D, MAD = 2.5 kcal mol-1), or by the addition of an atom pairwise densitydependent dispersion correction to a standard functional (e.g., PBE-dDXDM, MAD = 0.8 kcal mol-1). To a lesser extent, the reduction of the delocalization error (e.g., MCY3, MAD = 6.3 kcal mol-1) or careful parameter fitting (e.g., M06-2X, MAD = 5.6 kcal mol-1) also lowers the errors
SPAM(a,b): encoding the density information from guess Hamiltonian in quantum machine learning representations
Recently, we introduced a class of molecular representations for kernel-based
regression methods -- the spectrum of approximated Hamiltonian matrices
(SPAM) -- that takes advantage of lightweight one-electron
Hamiltonians traditionally used as an SCF initial guess. The original
SPAM variant is built from occupied-orbital energies (\ie,
eigenvalues) and naturally contains all the information about nuclear charges,
atomic positions, and symmetry requirements. Its advantages were demonstrated
on datasets featuring a wide variation of charge and spin, for which
traditional structure-based representations commonly fail.
SPAM(a,b), as introduced here, expands eigenvalue
SPAM into local and transferable representations. It relies upon
one-electron density matrices to build fingerprints from atomic or bond density
overlap contributions inspired from preceding state-of-the-art representations.
The performance and efficiency of SPAM(a,b) is assessed on the
predictions for datasets of prototypical organic molecules (QM7) of different
charges and azoheteroarene dyes in an excited state. Overall, both
SPAM(a) and SPAM(b) outperform state-of-the-art
representations on difficult prediction tasks such as the atomic properties of
charged open-shell species and of -conjugated systems.Comment: 9 pages + SI (18 pages
Learning on-top: regressing the on-top pair density for real-space visualization of electron correlation
The on-top pair density [] is a local
quantum-chemical property that reflects the probability of two electrons of any
spin to occupy the same position in space. Being the simplest quantity related
to the two-particle density matrix, the on-top pair density is a powerful
indicator of electron correlation effects, and as such, it has been extensively
used to combine density functional theory and multireference wavefunction
theory. The widespread application of is currently
hindered by the need for post-Hartree--Fock or multireference computations for
its accurate evaluation. In this work, we propose the construction of a machine
learning model capable of predicting the CASSCF-quality on-top pair density of
a molecule only from its structure and composition. Our model, trained on the
GDB11-AD-3165 database, is able to predict with minimal error the on-top pair
density of organic molecules, bypassing completely the need for computations. The accuracy of the regression is demonstrated using the
on-top ratio as a visual metric of electron correlation effects and
bond-breaking in real-space. In addition, we report the construction of a
specialized basis set, built to fit the on-top pair density in a single
atom-centered expansion. This basis, cornerstone of the regression, could be
potentially used also in the same spirit of the resolution-of-the-identity
approximation for the electron density.Comment: Article and Supporting Informatio
Genetic Algorithms for the Discovery of Homogeneous Catalysts
In this account, we discuss the use of genetic algorithms in the inverse design process of homogeneous catalysts for chemical transformations. We describe the main components of evolutionary experiments, specifically the nature of the fitness function to optimize, the library of molecular fragments from which potential catalysts are assembled, and the settings of the genetic algorithm itself. While not exhaustive, this review summarizes the key challenges and characteristics of our own (i.e., NaviCatGA) and other GAs for the discovery of new catalysts
Nickel pincer model of the active site of lactate racemase involves ligand participation in hydride transfer
Pincer complexes are widely applied in homogeneous catalysis. However, only very recently has the first pincer complex been discovered in the active site of a metalloenzyme, namely, lactate racemase. Here, we report a synthetic model of the active site of lactate racemase. The nickel pincer model not only reproduces some key structural features of the active site, but also mediates the dehydrogenation of alcohols, a reaction relevant to lactate racemization. Our work suggests a mechanism in which the unique pyridinium-derived SCS pincer ligand actively participates in the hydride transfer. This work not only represents a successful biomimetic study of this enzyme but also lays the foundation for the development of new bioinspired pincer ligands
Toward in silico Catalyst Optimization
In this minireview, we overview a computational pipeline developed within the framework of NCCR Catalysis that can be used to successfully reproduce the enantiomeric ratios of homogeneous catalytic reactions. At the core of this pipeline is the SCINE Molassembler module, a graph-based software that provides algorithms for molecular construction of all periodic table elements. With this pipeline, we are able to simultaneously functionalizenand generate ensembles of transition state conformers, which permits facile exploration of the influencenof various substituents on the overall enantiomeric ratio. This allows preconceived back-of-the-envelope designnmodels to be tested and subsequently refined by providing quick and reliable access to energetically low-lyingntransition states, which represents a key step in undertaking in silico catalyst optimization
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