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Title: A justification for a nonadiabatic surface hopping Herman-Kluk semiclassical initial value representation of the time evolution operator

Journal Article · · Journal of Chemical Physics
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.2358352· OSTI ID:20864318
;  [1]
  1. Department of Chemistry, Tulane University, 6400 Freret Street, New Orleans, Louisiana 70118 (United States)

A justification is given for the validity of a nonadiabatic surface hopping Herman-Kluk (HK) semiclassical initial value representation (SC-IVR) method. The method is based on a propagator that combines the single surface HK SC-IVR method [J. Chem. Phys. 84, 326 (1986)] and Herman's nonadiabatic semiclassical surface hopping theory [J. Chem. Phys. 103, 8081 (1995)], which was originally developed using the primitive semiclassical Van Vleck propagator. We show that the nonadiabatic HK SC-IVR propagator satisfies the time-dependent Schroedinger equation to the first order of ({Dirac_h}/2{pi}) and the error is O(({Dirac_h}/2{pi}){sup 2}). As a required lemma, we show that the stationary phase approximation, under current assumptions, has an error term ({Dirac_h}/2{pi}){sup 1} order higher than the leading term. Our derivation suggests some changes to the previous development, and it is shown that the numerical accuracy in applications to Tully's three model systems in low energies is improved.

OSTI ID:
20864318
Journal Information:
Journal of Chemical Physics, Vol. 125, Issue 15; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.2358352; (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0021-9606
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English