Yunlong Xiao

Four-component relativistic theory for nuclear magnetic shielding: Magnetically balanced gauge-including atomic orbitals

It is recognized only recently that the incorporation of the magnetic balance condition is absolutely essential for four-component relativistic theories of magnetic properties. Another important issue to be handled is the so-called gauge problem in calculations of, e.g., molecular magnetic shielding tensors with finite bases. It is shown here that the magnetic balance can be adapted to distributed gauge origins, leading to, e.g., magnetically balanced gauge-including atomic orbitals (MB-GIAOs) in which each magnetically balanced atomic orbital has its own local gauge origin placed on its center. Such a MB-GIAO scheme can be combined with any level of theory for electron correlation. The first implementation is done here at the coupled-perturbed Dirac-Kohn-Sham level. The calculated molecular magnetic shielding tensors are not only independent of the choice of gauge origin but also converge rapidly to the basis set limit. Close inspections reveal that (zeroth order) negative energy states are only important for the expansion of first order electronic core orbitals. Their contributions to the paramagnetism are therefore transferable from atoms to molecule and are essentially canceled out for chemical shifts. This allows for simplifications of the coupled-perturbed equations.

Four-component relativistic theory for nuclear magnetic shielding constants: the orbital decomposition approach.

The authors present a scheme to simplify four-component relativistic calculations of nuclear magnetic shielding constants. The central idea is to decompose each first order orbital into two terms, one is magnetically balanced and directly leads to the diamagnetic term, and the other is, to leading order of relativity, kinetically balanced and can therefore simply be represented in the basis of unperturbed positive energy states. As a matrix formulation, the present approach is far simpler than other operator theories. Combined with the Dirac-Kohn-Sham ansatz, the nuclear magnetic shielding constants for the Kr, Xe, and Rn atoms as well as the HBr and HI molecules are calculated, and the results compare favorably with those of other schemes.

Four-component relativistic theory for NMR parameters: Unified formulation and numerical assessment of different approaches

Several four-component relativistic approaches for nuclear magnetic shielding constant have recently been proposed and their formal relationships have also been established [Xiao et al., J. Chem. Phys. 126, 214101 (2007)]. It is shown here that the approaches can be recast into a unified form via the generic ansatz of orbital decomposition. The extension of the formalisms to magnetizability (and nuclear spin-spin coupling) is straightforward. Exact analytical expressions are also derived for both the shielding constant and magnetizability of the hydrogenlike atom in the ground state. A series of calculations on Rn(85+) and Rn is then carried out to reveal the performance of the various methods with respect to the basis set requirement, leading to the conclusion that it is absolutely essential to explicitly account for the magnetic balance condition. However, different ways of doing so lead to quite similar results. It is also demonstrated that only extremely compact negative energy states are important for the total shieldings and their effects are hence essentially canceled out for chemical shifts. This has important implications for further theoretical developments.

On the spin separation of algebraic two-component relativistic Hamiltonians

The separation of the spin-free and spin-dependent terms of a given relativistic Hamiltonian is usually facilitated by the Dirac identity. However, this is no longer possible for the recently developed exact two-component relativistic Hamiltonians derived from the matrix representation of the Dirac equation in a kinetically balanced basis. This stems from the fact that the decoupling matrix does not have an explicit form. To resolve this formal difficulty, we first define the spin-dependent term as the difference between a two-component Hamiltonian corresponding to the full Dirac equation and its one-component counterpart corresponding to the spin-free Dirac equation. The series expansion of the spin-dependent term is then developed in two different ways. One is in the spirit of the Douglas-Kroll-Hess (DKH) transformation and the other is based on the perturbative expansion of a two-component Hamiltonian of fixed structure, either the two-step Barysz-Sadlej-Snijders (BSS) or the one-step exact two-component (X2C) form. The algorithms for constructing arbitrary order terms are proposed for both schemes and their convergence patterns are assessed numerically. Truncating the expansions to finite orders leads naturally to a sequence of novel spin-dependent Hamiltonians. In particular, the order-by-order distinctions among the DKH, BSS, and X2C approaches can nicely be revealed. The well-known Pauli, zeroth-order regular approximation, and DKH1 spin-dependent Hamiltonians can also be recovered naturally by appropriately approximating the decoupling and renormalization matrices. On the practical side, the sf-X2C+so-DKH3 Hamiltonian, together with appropriately constructed generally contracted basis sets, is most promising for accounting for relativistic effects in two steps, first spin-free and then spin-dependent, with the latter applied either perturbatively or variationally.

Exact two-component relativistic theory for nuclear magnetic resonance parameters

An exact two-component (X2C) relativistic theory for nuclear magnetic resonance parameters is obtained by first a single block-diagonalization of the matrix representation of the Dirac operator in a magnetic-field-dependent basis and then a magnetic perturbation expansion of the resultant two-component Hamiltonian and transformation matrices. Such a matrix formulation is not only simple but also general in the sense that the various ways of incorporating the field dependence can be treated in a unified manner. The X2C dia- and paramagnetic terms agree individually with the corresponding four-component ones up to machine accuracy for any basis.

Combining spin-adapted open-shell TD-DFT with spin–orbit coupling

The recently proposed spin-adapted time-dependent density functional theory (S-TD-DFT) is extended to the relativistic domain for fine-structure splittings of excited states of open-shell systems. Scalar-relativistic effects are treated to infinite order via the spin-free (sf) part of the exact two-component (X2C) Hamiltonian, whereas the spin–orbit couplings (SOC) between the scalar-excited states are treated perturbatively via an effective one-electron spin–orbit operator derived from the same X2C Hamiltonian. The calculated results for prototypical open-shell systems containing heavy elements reveal that the composite approach sf-X2C-S-TD-DFT-SOC is very promising. The fine-structure splitting of a spatially degenerate ground state can also be described properly by taking a non-degenerate excited state as the reference.

Exact two-component relativistic theory for NMR parameters: General formulation and pilot application

The previously proposed exact two-component (X2C) relativistic theory of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) parameters [Q. Sun, W. Liu, Y. Xiao, and L. Cheng, J. Chem. Phys. 131, 081101 (2009)] is reformulated to accommodate two schemes for kinetic balance, five schemes for magnetic balance, and three schemes for decoupling in a unified manner, at both matrix and operator levels. In addition, three definitions of spin magnetization are considered in the coupled-perturbed Kohn-Sham equation. Apart from its simplicity, the most salient feature of X2C-NMR lies in that its diamagnetic and paramagnetic terms agree individually with the corresponding four-component counterparts for any finite basis. For practical applications, five approximate schemes for the first order coupling matrix X(10) and four approximate schemes for the treatment of two-electron integrals are introduced, which render the computations of X2C-NMR very much the same as those of approximate two-component approaches.

On the spin separation of algebraic two-component relativistic Hamiltonians: Molecular properties

The idea for separating the algebraic exact two-component (X2C) relativistic Hamiltonians into spin-free (sf) and spin-dependent terms [Z. Li, Y. Xiao, and W. Liu, J. Chem. Phys. 137, 154114 (2012)] is extended to both electric and magnetic molecular properties. Taking the spin-free terms (which are correct to infinite order in α ≈ 1/137) as zeroth order, the spin-dependent terms can be treated to any desired order via analytic derivative technique. This is further facilitated by unified Sylvester equations for the response of the decoupling and renormalization matrices to single or multiple perturbations. For practical purposes, explicit expressions of order α(2) in spin are also given for electric and magnetic properties, as well as two-electron spin-orbit couplings. At this order, the response of the decoupling and renormalization matrices is not required, such that the expressions are very compact and completely parallel to those based on the Breit-Pauli (BP) Hamiltonian. However, the former employ sf-X2C wave functions, whereas the latter can only use nonrelativistic wave functions. As the sf-X2C terms can readily be interfaced with any nonrelativistic program, the implementation of the O(α²) spin-orbit corrections to sf-X2C properties requires only marginal revisions of the routines for evaluating the BP type of corrections.

Exact two-component relativistic energy band theory and application

An exact two-component (X2C) relativistic density functional theory in terms of atom-centered basis functions is proposed for relativistic calculations of band structures and structural properties of periodic systems containing heavy elements. Due to finite radial extensions of the local basis functions, the periodic calculation is very much the same as a molecular calculation, except only for an Ewald summation for the Coulomb potential of fluctuating periodic monopoles. For comparison, the nonrelativistic and spin-free X2C counterparts are also implemented in parallel. As a first and pilot application, the band gaps, lattice constants, cohesive energies, and bulk moduli of AgX (X = Cl, Br, I) are calculated to compare with other theoretical results.