On-the-fly CASPT2 surface hopping dynamics

We report the development of programs for on-the-fly surface hopping dynamics simulations in the gas and condensed phases on the potential energy surfaces computed by multistate multireference perturbation theory (XMS-CASPT2) with full internal contraction. On-the-fly nonadiabatic dynamics simulations are made possible by improving the algorithm for XMS-CASPT2 nuclear energy gradient and derivative coupling evaluation. The program is interfaced to a surface hopping dynamics program, Newton-X, and a classical molecular dynamics package, tinker, to realize such simulations. On-the-fly XMS-CASPT2 surface-hopping dynamics simulations of 9H-adenine and an anionic GFP model chromophore (para-hydroxybenzilideneimidazolin-5-one) in water are presented to demonstrate the applicability of our program to sizable systems. Our program is implemented in the bagel package, which is publicly available under the GNU General Public License

On the accuracy of retinal protonated Schiff base models

We investigate the molecular geometries of the ground state and the minimal energy conical intersections (MECIs) between the ground and first excited states of the models for the retinal protonated Schiff base in the gas phase using the extended multistate complete active space second-order perturbation theory (XMS-CASPT2). The biggest model in this work is the rhodopsin chromophore truncated between the {\epsilon} and {\delta} carbon atoms, which consists of 54 atoms and 12-orbital {\pi} conjugation. The results are compared with those obtained by the state-averaged complete active space self-consistent field (SA-CASSCF). The XMS-CASPT2 results suggest that the minimum energy conical intersection associated with the so-called 13-14 isomerization is thermally inaccessible, which is in contrast to the SA-CASSCF results. The differences between the geometries of the conical intersections computed by SA-CASSCF and XMS-CASPT2 are ascribed to the fact that the charge transfer states are more stabilized by dynamical electron correlation than the diradicaloid states. The impact of the various choices of active spaces, basis sets, and state averaging schemes is also examined.Comment: Contribution to the special issue in honor of the 80th birthday of Professor Michael Bae

Analytical derivative coupling for multistate CASPT2 theory

The probability of non-radiative transitions in photochemical dynamics is determined by the derivative couplings, the couplings between different electronic states through the nuclear degrees of freedom. Efficient and accurate evaluation of the derivative couplings is, therefore, of central importance to realize reliable computer simulations of photochemical reactions. In this work, the derivative couplings for multistate multireference second-order perturbation theory (MS-CASPT2) and its 'extended' variant (XMS-CASPT2) are studied, in which we present an algorithm for their analytical evaluation. The computational costs for evaluating the derivative couplings are essentially the same as those for calculating the nuclear energy gradients. The geometries and energies calculated with XMS-CASPT2 for small molecules at minimum energy conical intersections (MECIs) are in good agreement with those computed by multireference configuration interaction. As numerical examples, MECIs are optimized using XMS-CASPT2 for stilbene and a GFP model chromophore (the 4-para-hydroxybenzylidene-1,2-dimethyl-imidazolin-5-one anion)