Seeking for ultrashort "non-bonded" hydrogen-hydrogen contacts in some rigid hydrocarbons and their chlorinated derivatives

In this communication a systematic computational survey on some rigid hydrocarbon skeletons, e.g. half-cage pentacyclododecanes and tetracyclododecanes, and their chlorinated derivatives in order to seek for the so-called ultrashort "non-bonded" hydrogen-hydrogen contacts is done. It is demonstrated that upon a proper choice and modifications of the main hydrocarbon backbones, and addition of some chlorine atoms instead of the original hydrogen atoms in parts of the employed hydrocarbons, the resulting strain triggers structural changes yielding ultrashort hydrogen-hydrogen contacts with inter-nuclear distances as small as 1.38 Angstrom. Such ultrashort contacts are clearly less than the world record of an ultrashort non-bonded hydrogen-hydrogen contact, 1.56 Angstrom, very recently realized experimentally by Pascal and coworkers in in,in-bis(hydrosilane) [J. Am. Chem. Soc. 135, 13235 (2013)]. The resulting computed structures as well as the developed methodology for structure design open the door for constructing a proper set of molecules for future studies on the nature of the so-called non-bonded hydrogen-hydrogen interactions that is now an active and controversial area of research.Comment: 17 pages, 2 figures, 3 Tables, Supporting informatio

The MC-QTAIM: A framework for extending the atoms in molecules analysis beyond purely electronic systems

The quantum theory of atoms in molecules, QTAIM, is employed to identify AIM and quantify their interactions through the partitioning of molecule into atomic basins in the real space and it is confined only to the purely electronic systems composed of electrons as quantum particles and the nuclei as clamped point charges. The extended version of the QTAIM, called the multi-component QTAIM, MC-QTAIM, bypasses this border and makes it possible to identify AIM and quantify their interactions in systems composed of multiple quantum particles that electrons may or may not be one of their components opening a new door for the analysis of the exotic AIM and bonds. In this contribution, two conjectures, called Bader conjecture, BC, and extended Bader conjecture, EBC, are proposed as the cornerstones of the real-space partitioning of a molecule into atomic basins within the context of the QTAIM and the MC-QTAIM, respectively. A literature survey on various few-body quantum systems composed of quarks, nucleons, and elementary particles like muons and positrons is also done unraveling the fact that in all these diverse systems there are unambiguous cases of clusterizations. These clustered systems, irrespective to their components, behave as if they are molecules composed of some kind of atoms, instead of being an amorphous mixture of quantum particles. In the case of the muonic and the positronic molecules computational studies reveal that the AIM structures of these systems are well-captured by the EBC. Beyond identifying atomic basins, both QTAIM and MC-QTAIM attribute properties to AIM, which is their share from the molecular expectation values of quantum observables. It is demonstrated that not only the share from the average value of an observable may be attributed to an atomic basin, but also the fluctuation of each basin property is also quantifiable.Comment: This is a polished version of v2 draf

Extending the topological analysis and seeking the real-space subsystems in non-Coulombic systems with homogeneous potential energy functions

It is customary to conceive the interactions of all the constituents of a molecular system, i.e. electrons and nuclei, as Coulombic. However, in a more detailed analysis one may always find small but non-negligible non-Coulombic interactions in molecular systems originating from the finite size of nuclei, magnetic interactions, etc. While such small modifications of the Coulombic interactions do not seem to alter the nature of a molecular system in real world seriously, they are a serious obstacle for quantum chemical theories and methodologies which their formalism is strictly confined to the Coulombic interactions. Although the quantum theory of atoms in molecules (QTAIM) has been formulated originally for the Coulombic systems, some recent studies have demonstrated that apart from basin energy of an atom in a molecule, its theoretical ingredients are not sensitive to the explicit form of the potential energy operator. In this study, it is demonstrated that the basin energy may be defined not only for coulombic systems but for all real-space subsystems of those systems that are described by any member of the set of the homogeneous potential energy functions. On the other hand, this extension opens the door for seeking novel real-space subsystems, apart from atoms in molecules, in non-Coulombic systems. These novel real-space subsystems call for an extended formalism that goes beyond the orthodox QTAIM, which is not confined to the Coulombic systems nor to the atoms in molecules as the sole real-space subsystems. It is termed the quantum theory of real-space open subsystems (QTROS) and its potential applications are detailed. The harmonic trap model, containing non-interacting fermions or bosons, is considered as an example for the QTROS analysis. The QTROS analysis of bosonic systems is particularly quite unprecedented, not attempted before.Comment: The original text contains some typos and misprints that have been corrected in this versio