Jacob Kongsted

The Dalton quantum chemistry program system

Dalton is a powerful general‐purpose program system for the study of molecular electronic structure at the Hartree–Fock, Kohn–Sham, multiconfigurational self‐consistent‐field, Møller–Plesset, configuration‐interaction, and coupled‐cluster levels of theory. Apart from the total energy, a wide variety of molecular properties may be calculated using these electronic‐structure models. Molecular gradients and Hessians are available for geometry optimizations, molecular dynamics, and vibrational studies, whereas magnetic resonance and optical activity can be studied in a gauge‐origin‐invariant manner. Frequency‐dependent molecular properties can be calculated using linear, quadratic, and cubic response theory. A large number of singlet and triplet perturbation operators are available for the study of one‐, two‐, and three‐photon processes. Environmental effects may be included using various dielectric‐medium and quantum‐mechanics/molecular‐mechanics models. Large molecules may be studied using linear‐scaling and massively parallel algorithms. Dalton is distributed at no cost from http://www.daltonprogram.org for a number of UNIX platforms.

Polarizability of molecular clusters as calculated by a dipole interaction model

We have developed and investigated a dipole interaction model for calculating the polarizability of molecular clusters. The model has been parametrized from the frequency-dependent molecular polarizability as obtained from quantum chemical calculations for a series of 184 aliphatic, aromatic, and heterocyclic compounds. A damping of the interatomic interaction at short distances is introduced in such a way as to retain a traceless interaction tensor and a good description of the damping over a wide range of interatomic distances. By adopting atomic polarizabilities in addition to atom-type parameters describing the damping and the frequency dependence, respectively, the model is found to reproduce the molecular frequency-dependent polarizability tensor calculated with ab initio methods. A study of the polarizability of four dimers has been carried out: the hydrogen fluoride, methane, benzene, and urea dimers. We find in general good agreement between the model and the quantum chemical results over a wide ...

Density functional self-consistent quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics theory for linear and nonlinear molecular properties: Applications to solvated water and formaldehyde.

A combined quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) method is described, where the polarization between the solvent and solute is accounted for using a self-consistent scheme linear in the solvent polarization. The QM/MM method is implemented for calculation of energies and molecular response properties including the calculation of linear and quadratic response functions using the density-functional theory (DFT) and the Hartree-Fock (HF) theory. Sample calculations presented for ground-state energies, first-order ground-state properties, excitation energies, first-order excited state properties, polarizabilities, first-hyperpolarizabilities, and two-photon absorptions strengths of formaldehyde suggests that DFT may in some cases be a sufficiently reliable alternative to high-level theory, such as coupled-cluster (CC) theory, in modeling solvent shifts, whereas results obtained with the HF wave function deviate significantly from the CC results. Calculations carried out on water gives results that also are comparable with CC calculations in accuracy for ground-state and first-order properties. However, to obtain such accuracy an exchange-correlation functional capable of describing the diffuse Rydberg states must be chosen.

Linear response functions for coupled cluster/molecular mechanics including polarization interactions

We present the first implementation of linear response theory for the coupled cluster/molecular mechanics (CC/MM) method. This model introduces polarization effects into a quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical (QM/MM) framework using a self-consistent procedure while electrostatic effects are modeled by assigning partial charges to the MM molecules and a van der Waals potential describes dispersion and short range repulsion. The quantum mechanical subsystem is described using coupled cluster electronic structure methods. The response theory for the calculation of molecular properties for such a model is described and implemented at the coupled cluster singles and doubles (CCSD) level. Sample calculations of excitation energies, transition moments and frequency dependent polarizabilities for liquid water are presented. Finally, we consider the development of a parameter independent iterative self-consistent CC/MM model where the properties calculated by CC/MM response theory are used in the QM/MM interac...

Photosynthetic Light-Harvesting Is Tuned by the Heterogeneous Polarizable Environment of the Protein

In photosynthesis, special antenna proteins that contain multiple light-absorbing molecules (chromophores) are able to capture sunlight and transfer the excitation energy to reaction centers with almost 100% quantum efficiencies. The critical role of the protein scaffold in holding the appropriate arrangement of the chromophores is well established and can be intuitively understood given the need to keep optimal dipole-dipole interactions between the energy-transferring chromophores, as described by Förster theory more than 60 years ago. However, the question whether the protein structure can also play an active role by tuning such dipole-dipole interactions has not been answered so far, its effect being rather crudely described by simple screening factors related to the refractive index properties of the system. Here, we present a combined quantum chemical/molecular mechanical approach to compute electronic couplings that accounts for the heterogeneous dielectric nature of the protein-solvent environment in atomic detail. We apply the method to study the effect of dielectric heterogeneity in the energy migration properties of the PE545 principal light-harvesting antenna of the cryptomonad Rhodomonas CS24. We find that dielectric heterogeneity can profoundly tune by a factor up to ∼4 the energy migration rates between chromophore sites compared to the average continuum dielectric view that has historically been assumed. Our results indicate that engineering of the local dielectric environment can potentially be used to optimize artificial light-harvesting antenna systems.

The polarizable embedding coupled cluster method

We formulate a new combined quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) method based on a self-consistent polarizable embedding (PE) scheme. For the description of the QM region, we apply the popular coupled cluster (CC) method detailing the inclusion of electrostatic and polarization effects into the CC Lagrangian. Also, we consider the transformations required to obtain molecular properties from the linear and quadratic response functions and provide an implementation for the calculation of excitation energies, one- and two-photon absorption properties, polarizabilities and hyperpolarizabilities all coupled to a polarizable MM environment. In the process, we identify CC densitylike intermediates that allow for a very efficient implementation retaining a computational low cost of the QM/MM terms even when the number of MM sites increases. The strengths of the new implementation are illustrated by property calculations on different systems representing the frontier of the capabilities of the CC/MM method. We combine our method with a molecular dynamics sampling scheme such that statistical averages of different excited state solvated properties may be obtained. Especially, we systematically investigate the relative importance of multipoles and polarizabilities in the description of two-photon absorption activity for formamide in aqueous solution. Also, we demonstrate the strengths of the CC hierarchies by incorporating correlation effects both at the CC2, CCSD, and at the triples level in the so-called PE-CCSDR(3) model. Finally, we utilize the presented method in the description of a full protein by investigating the shift of the intense electronic excitation energy of the photoactive yellow protein due to the surrounding amino acids.

The QM/MM approach for wavefunctions, energies and response functions within self-consistent field and coupled cluster theories

This paper presents the coupled cluster/molecular mechanics (CC/MM) and self-consistent field/molecular mechanics (SCF/MM) approaches for wavefunctions, energies and response properties. Two physically different theories are derived, the mean-field and the direct-field interaction approaches, together with expressions for the optimization condition of both variational and non-variational wavefunctions and energies. Also derived are the linear response functions at the CC/MM and SCF/MM levels of theory, and the expressions are compared with the vacuum response functions.

Excitation Energies in Solution: The Fully Polarizable QM/MM/PCM Method

We present the theory and an implementation of the combined quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics/polarizable dielectric continuum (QM/MM/PCM) method. This is a fully polarizable layered model designed for effective inclusion of a medium in a quantum-mechanical calculation. The short-range part of the solvent electrostatic potential is described by an atomistic model while the long-range part of this potential is described by a dielectric continuum. The QM/MM/PCM method has been implemented in combination with QM linear response techniques allowing for the assessment of, e.g., vertical electronic excitation energies and linear dipole-dipole polarizabilities, in all cases using a nonequilibrium formulation of the environmental response. The model is general, but is here implemented for the case of density functional theory. Numerical examples are given for solvatochromic shifts relating to a set of organic molecules in aqueous solution. We find in general the QM/MM/PCM interface to exhibit a faster convergence with respect to the system size as compared to the use of QM/MM only.

Molecular Properties through Polarizable Embedding

Abstract We review the theory related to the calculation of electric and magnetic molecular properties through polarizable embedding. In particular, we derive the expressions for the response functions up to the level of cubic response within the density functional theory-based polarizable embedding (PE-DFT) formalism. In addition, we discuss some illustrative applications related to the calculation of nuclear magnetic resonance parameters, nonlinear optical properties, and electronic excited states in solution.

Ligand Affinities Estimated by Quantum Chemical Calculations

We present quantum chemical estimates of ligand-binding affinities performed, for the first time, at a level of theory for which there is a hope that dispersion and polarization effects are properly accounted for (MP2/cc-pVTZ) and at the same time effects of solvation, entropy, and sampling are included. We have studied the binding of seven biotin analogues to the avidin tetramer. The calculations have been performed by the recently developed PMISP approach (polarizable multipole interactions with supermolecular pairs), which treats electrostatic interactions by multipoles up to quadrupoles, induction by anisotropic polarizabilities, and nonclassical interactions (dispersion, exchange repulsion, etc.) by explicit quantum chemical calculations, using a fragmentation approach, except for long-range interactions that are treated by standard molecular-mechanics Lennard-Jones terms. In order to include effects of sampling, 10 snapshots from a molecular dynamics simulation are studied for each biotin analogue. Solvation energies are estimated by the polarized continuum model (PCM), coupled to the multipole-polarizability model. Entropy effects are estimated from vibrational frequencies, calculated at the molecular mechanics level. We encounter several problems, not previously discussed, illustrating that we are first to apply such a method. For example, the PCM model is, in the present implementation, questionable for large molecules, owing to the use of a surface definition that gives numerous small cavities in a protein.