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Steven R Gwaltney

Publications and source records attributed to Steven R Gwaltney.

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Advances in methods and algorithms in a modern quantum chemistry program package.

Advances in theory and algorithms for electronic structure calculations must be incorporated into program packages to enable them to become routinely used by the broader chemical community. This work reviews advances made over the past five years or so that constitute the major improvements contained in a new release of the Q-Chem quantum chemistry package, together with illustrative timings and applications. Specific developments discussed include fast methods for density functional theory calculations, linear scaling evaluation of energies, NMR chemical shifts and electric properties, fast auxiliary basis function methods for correlated energies and gradients, equation-of-motion coupled cluster methods for ground and excited states, geminal wavefunctions, embedding methods and techniques for exploring potential energy surfaces.

Algorithms↗

Second-order correction to perfect pairing: an inexpensive electronic structure method for the treatment of strong electron-electron correlations.

We have formulated a second-order perturbative correction for perfect-pairing wave functions [PP2] based on similarity-transformed perturbation techniques in coupled cluster theory. The perfect-pairing approximation is used to obtain a simple reference wave function which can qualitatively describe bond breaking, diradicals, and other highly correlated systems, and the perturbative correction accounts for the dynamical correlation. An efficient implementation of this correction using the resolution of the identity approximation enables PP2 to be computed at a cost only a few times larger than that of canonical MP2 for systems with hundreds of active electrons and tens of heavy atoms. PP2 significantly improves on MP2 predictions in various systems with a challenging electronic structure.

Journal Article↗

Excitation spectra of dibenzoborole containing pi-electron systems: controlling the electronic spectra by changing the p(pi)-pi* conjugation.

We report time-dependent density functional theory calculations of the vertical excitation energies for the singlet states of three-coordinate 5H-dibenzoborole (DBB) derivatives and four-coordinate 5-fluoro-5H-dibenzoborole ion (FDBB) derivatives. These molecules show remarkable hypsochromic (blue) shifts in their fluorescence spectra and bathochromic (red) shifts in their absorption spectra when the bridging boron atoms change their coordination number from three to four. We constructed a series of derivatives of DBB and FDBB and studied how the energies of the electronic excitations change. The states with prominent oscillator strength in all of the DBB and FDBB derivatives show similar shifts of their excitation energies upon coordination. The three-coordinate DBB derivative 5-(2,4,6-triisopropylphenyl)-2,8-dimethoxy-3,7-bis[p-(N,N-diphenylamino)phenyl]-5H-dibenzo[d,b]borole has an intense absorption at 3.25 eV, which shifts in the four-coordinate FDBB derivative 5-fluro-5-(2,4,6-triisopropylphenyl)-2,8-dimethoxy-3,7-bis[p-(N,N-dip henylamino)phenyl]-5H-dibenzo[d,b]borole ion to 3.17 eV. The experimental absorption peaks are 3.43 and 3.31 eV, respectively. In addition, we investigated and analyzed the nature of these electronic excitations using attachment/detachment density plots, with which we characterized the changes in electron density that arose from the excitations.

Algorithms↗

Charge-transfer mechanism for electrophilic aromatic nitration and nitrosation via the convergence of (ab initio) molecular-orbital and Marcus-Hush theories with experiments.

The highly disparate rates of aromatic nitrosation and nitration, despite the very similar (electrophilic) properties of the active species: NO(+) and NO(2)(+) in Chart 1, are quantitatively reconciled. First, the thorough mappings of the potential-energy surfaces by high level (ab initio) molecular-orbital methodologies involving extensive coupled-cluster CCSD(T)/6-31G optimizations establish the intervention of two reactive intermediates in nitration (Figure 8) but only one in nitrosation (Figure 7). Second, the same distinctive topologies involving double and single potential-energy minima (Figures 6 and 5) also emerge from the semiquantitative application of the Marcus-Hush theory to the transient spectral data. Such a striking convergence from quite different theoretical approaches indicates that the molecular-orbital and Marcus-Hush (potential-energy) surfaces are conceptually interchangeable. In the resultant charge-transfer mechanism, the bimolecular interactions of arene donors with both NO(+) and NO(2)(+) spontaneously lead (barrierless) to pi-complexes in which electron transfer is concurrent with complexation. Such a pi-complex in nitration is rapidly converted to the sigma-complex, whereas this Wheland adduct in nitrosation merely represents a high energy (transition-state) structure. Marcus-Hush analysis thus demonstrates how the strongly differentiated (arene) reactivities toward NO(+) and NO(2)(+) can actually be exploited in the quantitative development of a single coherent (electron-transfer) mechanism for both aromatic nitrosation and nitration.

Journal Article↗