8,939 research outputs found
The limitations of Slater's element-dependent exchange functional from analytic density functional theory
Our recent formulation of the analytic and variational Slater-Roothaan (SR)
method, which uses Gaussian basis sets to variationally express the molecular
orbitals, electron density and the one body effective potential of density
functional theory, is reviewed. Variational fitting can be extended to the
resolution of identity method,where variationality then refers to the error in
each two electron integral and not to the total energy. It is proposed that the
appropriate fitting functions be charge neutral and that all ab initio energies
be evaluated using two-center fits of the two-electron integrals. The SR method
has its root in the Slater's Xalpha method and permits an arbitrary scaling of
the Slater-Gaspar-Kohn-Sham exchange-correlation potential around each atom in
the system. Of several ways of choosing the scaling factors (Slater's exchange
parameters), two most obvious are the Hartree-Fock (HF), alpha_HF, values and
the exact atomic, alpha_EA, values. The performance of this simple analytic
model with both sets for atomization energies of G2 set of 148 molecules is
better than the local density approximation or the HF theory, although the
errors in atomization energy are larger than the target chemical accuracy.
To improve peformance for atomization energies, the SR method is
reparametrized to give atomization energies of 148 molecules to be comparbale
to those obtained by one of the most widely used generalized gradient
approximations. The mean absolute error in ionization potentials of 49 atoms
and molecules is about 0.5 eV and that in bond distances of 27 molecules is
about 0.02 Angstrom. The overall good performance of the computationally
efficient SR method using any reasonable set of alpha values makes it a
promising method for study of large systems.Comment: 33 pages, Uses RevTex, to appear in The Journal of Chemical Physic
Exchange coupling between silicon donors: the crucial role of the central cell and mass anisotropy
Donors in silicon are now demonstrated as one of the leading candidates for
implementing qubits and quantum information processing. Single qubit
operations, measurements and long coherence times are firmly established, but
progress on controlling two qubit interactions has been slower. One reason for
this is that the inter donor exchange coupling has been predicted to oscillate
with separation, making it hard to estimate in device designs. We present a
multivalley effective mass theory of a donor pair in silicon, including both a
central cell potential and the effective mass anisotropy intrinsic in the Si
conduction band. We are able to accurately describe the single donor properties
of valley-orbit coupling and the spatial extent of donor wave functions,
highlighting the importance of fitting measured values of hyperfine coupling
and the orbital energy of the levels. Ours is a simple framework that can
be applied flexibly to a range of experimental scenarios, but it is nonetheless
able to provide fast and reliable predictions. We use it to estimate the
exchange coupling between two donor electrons and we find a smoothing of its
expected oscillations, and predict a monotonic dependence on separation if two
donors are spaced precisely along the [100] direction.Comment: Published version. Corrected b and B values from previous versio
Truth and tractability: compromising between accuracy and computational cost in quantum computational chemistry methods for noncovalent interactions and metal-salen catalysis
Computational chemists are concerned about two aspects when choosing between the myriad of theoretical methodologies: the accuracy (the
"truth") and the computational cost (the tractability). Among the least expensive methods are the Hartree-Fock (HF), density functional theory (DFT), and second-order Moller-Plesset perturbation theory (MP2) methods. While each of these methods yield excellent results in many
cases, the inadequate inclusion of certain types of electron correlation (either high-orders or nondynamical) can produce erroneous results.
The compromise for the computation of noncovalent interactions often comes from empirically scaling DFT and/or MP2 methods to fit benchmark
data sets. The DFT method with an empirically fit dispersion term (DFT-D) often yields semi-quantitative results. The spin-component
scaled MP2 (SCS-MP2) method parameterizes the same- and opposite-spin correlation energies and often yields less than 20% error for prototype
noncovalent systems compared to chemically accurate CCSD(T) results. There is no simple fix for cases with a large degree of nondynamical
correlation (such as transition metal-salen complexes). While testing standard and new DFT functionals on the spin-state energy gaps of
transition metal-salen complexes, no DFT method produced reliable results compared to very robust CASPT3 results. Therefore each metal-salen
complex must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis to determine which methods are the most reliable. Utilizing a combination of DFT-D and SCS-MP2 methods, the reaction mechanism for the addition of cyanide to unsaturated imides catalyzed by the Al(Cl)-salen complex was performed. Various experimental observations are rationalized through this mechanism.Ph.D.Committee Chair: Sherrill, C. David; Committee Member: Bredas, Jean-luc; Committee Member: Brown, Kenneth; Committee Member: Ludovice, Peter; Committee Member: Orlando, Thoma
A comparison between quantum chemistry and quantum Monte Carlo techniques for the adsorption of water on the (001) LiH surface
We present a comprehensive benchmark study of the adsorption energy of a
single water molecule on the (001) LiH surface using periodic coupled cluster
and quantum Monte Carlo theories. We benchmark and compare different
implementations of quantum chemical wave function based theories in order to
verify the reliability of the predicted adsorption energies and the employed
approximations. Furthermore we compare the predicted adsorption energies to
those obtained employing widely-used van der Waals density-functionals. Our
findings show that quantum chemical approaches are becoming a robust and
reliable tool for condensed phase electronic structure calculations, providing
an additional tool that can also help in potentially improving currently
available van der Waals density-functionals
Consistent Scenarios for Cosmic-Ray Excesses from Sommerfeld-Enhanced Dark Matter Annihilation
Anomalies in direct and indirect detection have motivated models of dark
matter consisting of a multiplet of nearly-degenerate states, coupled by a new
GeV-scale interaction. We perform a careful analysis of the thermal freezeout
of dark matter annihilation in such a scenario. We compute the range of "boost
factors" arising from Sommerfeld enhancement in the local halo for models which
produce the correct relic density, and show the effect of including constraints
on the saturated enhancement from the cosmic microwave background (CMB). We
find that boost factors from Sommerfeld enhancement of up to ~800 are possible
in the local halo. When the CMB bounds on the saturated enhancement are
applied, the maximal boost factor is reduced to ~400 for 1-2 TeV dark matter
and sub-GeV force carriers, but remains large enough to explain the observed
Fermi and PAMELA electronic signals. We describe regions in the DM mass-boost
factor plane where the cosmic ray data is well fit for a range of final states,
and show that Sommerfeld enhancement alone is enough to provide the large
annihilation cross sections required to fit the data, although for light
mediator masses (less than ~200 MeV) there is tension with the CMB constraints
in the absence of astrophysical boost factors from substructure. Additionally,
we consider the circumstances under which WIMPonium formation is relevant and
find for heavy WIMPs (greater than ~2 TeV) and soft-spectrum annihilation
channels it can be an important consideration; we find regions with dark matter
mass greater than 2.8 TeV that are consistent with the CMB bounds and have
~600-700 present-day boost factors.Comment: Related web application at
http://astrometry.fas.harvard.edu/mvogelsb/sommerfeld . v2: added brief
clarification regarding propagation parameters, plots now show effect of
relaxing CMB bounds. 35 pages in JCAP format, 4 figures. Accepted for
publication in JCA
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