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At least 271 records · Page 15

Accurate prediction of carbon dioxide capture by deep eutectic solvents using quantum chemistry and a neural network

Carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions from fossil fuel combustion are a significant source of greenhouse gas, contributing in a major way to global warming and climate change. Carbon dioxide capture and sequestration is gaining much attention as a potential method for controlling these greenhouse gas emissions. Among the environmentally friendly solvents, deep eutectic solvents (DESs) have demonstrated the potential capability for carbon capture. To establish a theoretical framework for DES activity, thermodynamics modeling and solubility predictions are significant factors to anticipate and understand the system behavior. Here, in this study, we combine the COSMO-RS model with machine learning techniques to predict the solubility of CO 2 in various deep eutectic solvents. A comprehensive data set was established comprising 1973 CO 2 solubility data points in 132 different DESs at a variety of temperatures, pressures, and DES molar ratios. This data set was then utilized for the further verification and development of the COSMO-RS model. The CO 2 solubility (ln(x CO 2 )) in DESs calculated with the COSMO-RS model differs significantly from the experiment with an average absolute relative deviation (AARD) of 23.4%. A multilinear regression model was developed using the COSMO-RS predicted solubility and a temperature-pressure dependent parameter, which improved the AARD to 12%. Finally, a machine learning model using COSMO-RS-derived features was developed based on an artificial neural network algorithm. The results are in excellent agreement with the experimental CO 2 solubilities, with an AARD of only 2.72%. The ML model will be a potentially useful tool for the design and selection of DESs for CO 2 capture and utilization.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

A Stabilizer Framework for the Contextual Subspace Variational Quantum Eigensolver and the Noncontextual Projection Ansatz

Quantum chemistry is a promising application for noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) devices. However, quantum computers have thus far not succeeded in providing solutions to problems of real scientific significance, with algorithmic advances being necessary to fully utilize even the modest NISQ machines available today. We discuss a method of ground state energy estimation predicated on a partitioning of the molecular Hamiltonian into two parts: one that is noncontextual and can be solved classically, supplemented by a contextual component that yields quantum corrections obtained via a Variational Quantum Eigensolver (VQE) routine. This approach has been termed Contextual Subspace VQE (CS-VQE); however, there are obstacles to overcome before it can be deployed on NISQ devices. The problem we address here is that of the ansatz, a parametrized quantum state over which we optimize during VQE; it is not initially clear how a splitting of the Hamiltonian should be reflected in the CS-VQE ansätze. We propose a “noncontextual projection” approach that is illuminated by a reformulation of CS-VQE in the stabilizer formalism. This defines an ansatz restriction from the full electronic structure problem to the contextual subspace and facilitates an implementation of CS-VQE that may be deployed on NISQ devices. We validate the noncontextual projection ansatz using a quantum simulator and demonstrate chemically precise ground state energy calculations for a suite of small molecules at a significant reduction in the required qubit count and circuit depth.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Novel Relativistic Electronic Structure Theories for Actinide-Containing Compounds

Actinides of importance to basic energy sciences contain electrons moving at speed comparable to the speed of light. Reliable computational simulation of these electrons and hence actinide chemistry requires accurate description of relativistic effects. The present project advances computational actinide chemistry with development of new methodologies, algorithms, and computer programs in relativistic quantum chemistry, as well as applications to actinide chemistry and spectroscopy. A new “electrons-only” exact two-component approach has been developed to provide efficient treatments of relativistic effects, while maintaining chemical accuracy. New computational algorithms developed here extend the applicability of relativistic electron-correlation methods to larger molecules. The method-development work in this project also features the first implementation of analytic gradient technique for relativistic electron-correlation methods, which provides significantly enhanced ability to compute properties for molecules containing actinides. The applicability and usefulness of these new methods and computer programs have been demonstrated in calculations of actinide-containing molecules to facilitate understanding of actinide chemistry and spectroscopy.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Computational Spectroscopy of the Cr–Cr Bond in Coordination Complexes

In this work, we report the accurate computational vibrational analysis of the Cr–Cr bond in dichromium complexes using second-order multireference complete active space methods (CASPT2), allowing direct comparison with experimental spectroscopic data both to facilitate interpreting the low-energy region of the spectra and to provide insights into the nature of the bonds themselves. Recent technological development by the authors has realized such computation for the first time. Accurate simulation of the vibrational structure of these compounds has been hampered by their notorious multiconfigurational electronic structure that yields bond distances that do not correlate with bond order. Some measured Cr–Cr vibrational stretching modes, ν(Cr 2 ), have suggested weaker bonding, even for so-called ultrashort Cr–Cr bonds, while others are in line with the bond distance. Here, we optimize geometries and compute ν(Cr 2 ) with CASPT2 for three well-characterized complexes, Cr 2 (O 2 CCH 3 ) 4 (H 2 O) 2 , Cr 2 (mhp) 4 , and Cr 2 (dmp) 4 . We obtain CASPT2 harmonic ν(Cr 2 ) modes in good agreement with experiment at 282 cm –1 for Cr 2 (mhp) 4 and 353 cm –1 for Cr 2 (dmp) 4 , compute 50 Cr and 54 Cr isotope shifts, and demonstrate that the use of the so-called IPEA shift leads to improved Cr–Cr distances. Additionally, normal mode sampling was used to estimate anharmonicity along ν(Cr 2 ), leading to an anharmonic mode of 272 cm –1 for Cr 2 (mhp) 4 and 333 cm –1 for Cr 2 (dmp) 4 .

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Practical quantum computation of chemical and nuclear energy levels using quantum imaginary time evolution and Lanczos algorithms

Various methods have been developed for the quantum computation of the ground and excited states of physical and chemical systems, but many of them require either large numbers of ancilla qubits or high-dimensional optimization in the presence of noise. The quantum imaginary-time evolution (QITE) and quantum Lanczos (QLanczos) methods proposed in Motta et al. (2020) eschew the aforementioned issues. In this study, we demonstrate the practical application of these algorithms to challenging quantum computations of relevance for chemistry and nuclear physics, using the deuteron-binding energy and molecular hydrogen binding and excited state energies as examples. With the correct choice of initial and final states, we show that the number of timesteps in QITE and QLanczos can be reduced significantly, which commensurately simplifies the required quantum circuit and improves compatibility with NISQ devices. We have performed these calculations on cloud-accessible IBM Q quantum computers. With the application of readout-error mitigation and Richardson error extrapolation, we have obtained ground and excited state energies that agree well with exact results obtained from diagonalization.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Flexibility of the factorized form of the unitary coupled cluster Ansatz

The factorized form of the unitary coupled cluster Ansatz is a popular state preparation Ansatz for electronic structure calculations of molecules on quantum computers. It is often viewed as an approximation (based on the Trotter product formula) for the conventional unitary coupled cluster operator. In this work, we show that the factorized form is quite flexible, allowing one to range from a conventional configuration interaction, to conventional unitary coupled cluster, to efficient approximations that lie in between these two. The variational minimization of the energy often allows simpler factorized unitary coupled cluster approximations to achieve high accuracy, even if they do not accurately approximate the Trotter product formula. This is similar to how quantum approximate optimization algorithms can achieve high accuracy with a small number of levels.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Assessing MP2 frozen natural orbitals in relativistic correlated electronic structure calculations

The high computational scaling with the basis set size and the number of correlated electrons is a bottleneck limiting applications of coupled cluster algorithms, in particular for calculations based on two- or four-component relativistic Hamiltonians, which often employ uncontracted basis sets. This problem may be alleviated by replacing canonical Hartree–Fock virtual orbitals by natural orbitals (NOs). Here, in this paper, we describe the implementation of a module for generating NOs for correlated wavefunctions and, in particular, second order Møller–Plesset perturbation frozen natural orbitals (MP2FNOs) as a component of our novel implementation of relativistic coupled cluster theory for massively parallel architectures [Pototschnig et al. J. Chem. Theory Comput. 17, 5509, (2021)]. Our implementation can manipulate complex or quaternion density matrices, thus allowing for the generation of both Kramers-restricted and Kramers-unrestricted MP2FNOs. Furthermore, NOs are re-expressed in the parent atomic orbital (AO) basis, allowing for generating coupled cluster singles and doubles NOs in the AO basis for further analysis. By investigating the truncation errors of MP2FNOs for both the correlation energy and molecular properties—electric field gradients at the nuclei, electric dipole and quadrupole moments for hydrogen halides HX (X = F–Ts), and parity-violating energy differences for H 2 Z 2 (Z = O–Se)—we find MP2FNOs accelerate the convergence of the correlation energy in a roughly uniform manner across the Periodic Table. It is possible to obtain reliable estimates for both energies and the molecular properties considered with virtual molecular orbital spaces truncated to about half the size of the full spaces.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Atomic isotropic hyperfine properties for second row elements (Al–Cl)

Isotropic hyperfine properties have been obtained for the second row elements Al–Cl using a systematic composite approach consisting of a sequence of core/valence correlation consistent basis sets, up through aug-cc-pCV7Z, along with configuration interaction and coupled cluster methods. The best nonrelativistic final values for the atomic ground states (in MHz) are -1.80 27 Al ( 2 P o 1/2 ), -24.31 29 Si ( 3 P 0 ), 63.70 31 P ( 4 So 3/2 ), 20.77 33 S ( 3 P 2 ), and 35.42 35 Cl ( 2 P o 3/2 ). We find a large K shell contribution to the spin density at the nucleus that is almost canceled by the L and M shell contributions. The spin density in atomic units is approximately linear with respect to the atomic number.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Benchmarking Quantum Chemistry Computations with Variational, Imaginary Time Evolution, and Krylov Space Solver Algorithms

Quantum chemistry is a key application area for noisy-intermediate scale quantum (NISQ) devices, and therefore serves as an important benchmark for current and future quantum computer performance. Previous benchmarks in this field have focused on variational methods for computing ground and excited states of various molecules, including a benchmarking suite focused on the performance of computing ground states for alkali-hydrides under an array of error mitigation methods. State-of-the-art methods to reach chemical accuracy in hybrid quantum-classical electronic structure calculations of alkali hydride molecules on NISQ devices from IBM are outlined here. Here it is demonstrated how to extend the reach of variational eigensolvers with symmetry preserving Ansätze. Next, it is outlined how to use quantum imaginary time evolution and Lanczos as a complementary method to variational techniques, highlighting the advantages of each approach. Finally, a new error mitigation method is demonstrated which uses systematic error cancellation via hidden inverse gate constructions, improving the performance of typical variational algorithms. These results show that electronic structure calculations have advanced rapidly, to routine chemical accuracy for simple molecules, from their inception on quantum computers a few short years ago, and they point to further rapid progress to larger molecules as the power of NISQ devices grows.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Hydrogen irradiation-driven computational surface chemistry of lithium oxide and hydroxide

We have investigated, using molecular dynamics, the surface chemistry of hydrogen incident on the amorphous and crystalline lithium oxide and lithium hydroxide surfaces upon being slowed down by a collision cascade and retained in the amorphous surface of either Li 2 O or LiOH. We looked for the bonding of H to the resident structures in the surface to understand a possible chain of chemical reactions that can lead to surface transformation upon H atom impact. Our findings, using Density-Functional Theory (DFT) trained ReaxFF force field/electronegativity equalization method potentials, stress the importance of inclusion of polarization in the dynamics of a Li–O–H system, which is also illustrated by DFT energy minimization and quantum–classical molecular dynamics using tight binding DFT. The resulting polar-covalent chemistry of the studied systems is complex and very sensitive to the instantaneous positions of all atoms as well as the ratio of concentrations of various resident atoms in the surface.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Quantum bath augmented stochastic nonequilibrium atomistic simulations for molecular heat conduction

Classical molecular dynamics (MD) has been shown to be effective in simulating heat conduction in certain molecular junctions since it inherently takes into account some essential methodological components which are lacking in the quantum Landauer-type transport model, such as many-body full force-field interactions, anharmonicity effects and nonlinear responses for large temperature biases. However, the classical MD reaches its limit in the environments where the quantum effects are significant (e.g. with low-temperatures substrates, presence of extremely high frequency molecular modes). Here, we present an atomistic simulation methodology for molecular heat conduction that incorporates the quantum Bose–Einstein statistics into an “effective temperature” in the form of a modified Langevin equation. We show that the results from such a quasi-classical effective temperature MD method deviates drastically when the baths temperature approaches zero from classical MD simulations and the results converge to the classical ones when the bath approaches the high-temperature limit, which makes the method suitable for full temperature range. In addition, we show that our quasi-classical thermal transport method can be used to model the conducting substrate layout and molecular composition (e.g. anharmonicities, high-frequency modes). Anharmonic models are explicitly simulated via the Morse potential and compared to pure harmonic interactions to show the effects of anharmonicities under quantum colored bath setups. Finally, the chain length dependence of heat conduction is examined for one-dimensional polymer chains placed in between quantum augmented baths.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Benchmarking Adaptive Variational Quantum Eigensolvers

By design, the variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) strives to recover the lowest-energy eigenvalue of a given Hamiltonian by preparing quantum states guided by the variational principle. In practice, the prepared quantum state is indirectly assessed by the value of the associated energy. Novel adaptive derivative-assembled pseudo-trotter (ADAPT) ansatz approaches and recent formal advances now establish a clear connection between the theory of quantum chemistry and the quantum state ansatz used to solve the electronic structure problem. Here we benchmark the accuracy of VQE and ADAPT-VQE to calculate the electronic ground states and potential energy curves for a few selected diatomic molecules, namely H 2 , NaH, and KH. Using numerical simulation, we find both methods provide good estimates of the energy and ground state, but only ADAPT-VQE proves to be robust to particularities in optimization methods. Another relevant finding is that gradient-based optimization is overall more economical and delivers superior performance than analogous simulations carried out with gradient-free optimizers. The results also identify small errors in the prepared state fidelity which show an increasing trend with molecular size.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Atomic isotropic hyperfine properties for first row elements (B–F) revisited

Benchmark quality isotropic hyperfine properties have been obtained for first row elements (B–F) using a systematic composite approach consisting of a sequence of core/valence correlation consistent basis sets, up through aug-cc-pCV8Z, along with configuration interaction and coupled cluster theory methods. The best nonrelativistic final values (in MHz) are 10.64 (B), 20.22 (C), 10.59 (N), –31.74 (O), and 318.30 (F) and are in very good agreement with available experimental values for these difficult-to-describe properties. Agreement is especially close in the case of N, which has the most accurate experimental value. The spin densities derived from the best composite level of theory were found to closely follow a simple quadratic scaling with the atomic number, Z. Finally, observed convergence rates in the 1-particle and n-particle expansions obtained here may be useful in judging likely accuracy that can be expected in studies of molecular systems.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Analytical gradients for molecular-orbital-based machine learning

We report molecular-orbital-based machine learning (MOB-ML) enables the prediction of accurate correlation energies at the cost of obtaining molecular orbitals. Here, we present the derivation, implementation, and numerical demonstration of MOB-ML analytical nuclear gradients, which are formulated in a general Lagrangian framework to enforce orthogonality, localization, and Brillouin constraints on the molecular orbitals. The MOB-ML gradient framework is general with respect to the regression technique (e.g., Gaussian process regression or neural networks) and the MOB feature design. We show that MOB-ML gradients are highly accurate compared to other ML methods on the ISO17 dataset while only being trained on energies for hundreds of molecules compared to energies and gradients for hundreds of thousands of molecules for the other ML methods. The MOB-ML gradients are also shown to yield accurate optimized structures at a computational cost for the gradient evaluation that is comparable to a density-corrected density functional theory calculation.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Adaptive estimation of quantum observables

The accurate estimation of quantum observables is a critical task in science. With progress on the hardware, measuring a quantum system will become increasingly demanding, particularly for variational protocols that require extensive sampling. Here, we introduce a measurement scheme that adaptively modifies the estimator based on previously obtained data. Our algorithm, which we call AEQuO, continuously monitors both the estimated average and the associated error of the considered observable, and determines the next measurement step based on this information. We allow both for overlap and non-bitwise commutation relations in the subsets of Pauli operators that are simultaneously probed, thereby maximizing the amount of gathered information. AEQuO comes in two variants: a greedy bucket-filling algorithm with good performance for small problem instances, and a machine learning-based algorithm with more favorable scaling for larger instances. The measurement configuration determined by these subroutines is further post-processed in order to lower the error on the estimator. We test our protocol on chemistry Hamiltonians, for which AEQuO provides error estimates that improve on all state-of-the-art methods based on various grouping techniques or randomized measurements, thus greatly lowering the toll of measurements in current and future quantum applications.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

The development and applications of multidimensional biomolecular spectroscopy illustrated by photosynthetic light harvesting

The parallel and synergistic developments of atomic resolution structural information, new spectroscopic methods, their underpinning formalism, and the application of sophisticated theoretical methods have led to a step function change in our understanding of photosynthetic light harvesting, the process by which photosynthetic organisms collect solar energy and supply it to their reaction centers to initiate the chemistry of photosynthesis. The new spectroscopic methods, in particular multidimensional spectroscopies, have enabled a transition from recording rates of processes to focusing on mechanism. We discuss two ultrafast spectroscopies – two-dimensional electronic spectroscopy and two-dimensional electronic-vibrational spectroscopy – and illustrate their development through the lens of photosynthetic light harvesting. Both spectroscopies provide enhanced spectral resolution and, in different ways, reveal pathways of energy flow and coherent oscillations which relate to the quantum mechanical mixing of, for example, electronic excitations (excitons) and nuclear motions. The new types of information present in these spectra provoked the application of sophisticated quantum dynamical theories to describe the temporal evolution of the spectra and provide new questions for experimental investigation. While multidimensional spectroscopies have applications in many other areas of science, we feel that the investigation of photosynthetic light harvesting has had the largest influence on the development of spectroscopic and theoretical methods for the study of quantum dynamics in biology, hence the focus of this review. We conclude with key questions for the next decade of this review.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

From Inside Out: How the Buried Interface, Shell Defects, and Surface Chemistry Conspire to Determine Optical Performance in Nonblinking Giant Quantum Dots

“Giant” or core/thick‐shell quantum dots (gQDs) are an important class of solid‐state quantum emitter characterized by strongly suppressed blinking and photobleaching under ambient conditions, and reduced nonradiative Auger processes. Together, these qualities provide distinguishing and useful functionality as single‐ and ensemble‐photon sources. For many applications, operation at elevated temperatures and under intense photon flux is desired, but performance is strongly dependent on the synthetic method employed for thick‐shell growth. Here, a comprehensive analysis of gQD structural properties “from the inside out” as a function of shell‐growth method is reported: successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction (SILAR) and high‐temperature continuous injection (HT‐CI), or sequential combinations of the two. Key correlations across synthesis methods, structural features (interfacial alloying, stacking‐fault density and surface‐ligand identity), and performance metrics (quantum yield, single‐gQD photoluminescence under thermal/photo stress, charging behavior and quantum‐optical properties) are identified. Surprisingly, it is found that interfacial alloying is the strongest indicator of gQD stability under stress, but this parameter is not the determining factor for Auger suppression. Furthermore, quantum yield is strongly influenced by surface chemistry and can approach unity even in the case of high shell‐defect density, while introduction of zinc‐blende stacking faults increases the likelihood that a gQD exhibits charged‐state emission.

77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY↗