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Title: Polarization contributions to intermolecular interactions revisited with fragment electric-field response functions

Journal Article · · Journal of Chemical Physics
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4930534· OSTI ID:22489595
 [1]
  1. Department of Chemistry, Kenneth S. Pitzer Center for Theoretical Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA and Chemical Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720 (United States)

The polarization energy in intermolecular interactions treated by self-consistent field electronic structure theory is often evaluated using a constraint that the atomic orbital (AO) to molecular orbital transformation is blocked by fragments. This approach is tied to AO basis sets, overestimates polarization energies in the overlapping regime, particularly in large AO basis sets, and lacks a useful complete basis set limit. These problems are addressed by the construction of polarization subspaces based on the responses of isolated fragments to weak electric fields. These subspaces are spanned by fragment electric-field response functions, which can capture effects up to the dipole (D), or quadrupole (DQ) level, or beyond. Schemes are presented for the creation of both non-orthogonal and orthogonal fragment subspaces, and the basis set convergence of the polarization energies computed using these spaces is assessed. Numerical calculations for the water dimer, water–Na{sup +}, water–Mg{sup 2+}, water–F{sup −}, and water–Cl{sup −} show that the non-orthogonal DQ model is very satisfactory, with small differences relative to the orthogonalized model. Additionally, we prove a fundamental difference between the polarization degrees of freedom in the fragment-blocked approaches and in constrained density schemes. Only the former are capable of properly prohibiting charge delocalization during polarization.

OSTI ID:
22489595
Journal Information:
Journal of Chemical Physics, Vol. 143, Issue 11; Other Information: (c) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0021-9606
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English