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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 757 records · Page 42
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DOE OSTI2021

Projector-Free Capped-Fragment Scheme within Density Functional Embedding Theory for Covalent and Ionic Compounds

Quantum-mechanics-(QM)-based simulations now routinely aid in understanding and even discovering new chemistries involving molecules and materials exhibiting desired functionalities. Ab initio correlated wavefunction (CW) theories systematically improve QM methods, with many exhibiting high accuracy. However, execution of CW methods requires expensive computations that typically scale poorly with system size. Divide-and-conquer approaches partition large systems into smaller fragments; a lower level of theory treats fragment interactions while a preferred higher level of theory describes the important fragment. These methods offer ways to incorporate CWs into chemical simulations of large systems, e.g., biomolecules, surfaces, large inorganic clusters, bulk crystals, etc. Here we propose a partitioning protocol that utilizes capping atoms to saturate severed covalent bonds at fragment interfaces and density functional embedding theory (DFET) to describe fragment interactions. The capping groups in each fragment provide an ad-hoc potential that approximates the effects of the environment. An embedding potential optimized via DFET then serves as an augmentation of the capping group to simulate the effects of the environment. We concurrently use an auxiliary fragment (a separate system comprised of only the combined capping groups) to account for, and thereby correct, the electron density contributions of all the capping groups added to all of the fragments. This method depends only on the capped-subsystem and auxiliary-fragment electron densities, forgoing, as with the original DFET developed for metallic systems, orbital-based projector approaches that determine a nonlocal action of the embedding potential onto the fragment electrons. By using an auxiliary fragment, the method maintains a purely electron-density-dependent embedding potential, substantially lessening the cost and leading to simpler implementation. In this work, we demonstrate the utility of our capped-DFET and ensuing capped embedded CW method in two contrasting systems, namely, an organic molecule and an ionic metal oxide cluster.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2021

Two-Component Multireference Restricted Active Space Configuration Interaction for the Computation of L-Edge X-ray Absorption Spectra

X-ray absorption spectroscopy is a powerful probe of local electronic and nuclear structure, providing insights into chemical processes. The theoretical prediction and interpretation of metal L-edge X-ray absorption spectra is complicated by both relativistic effects, including spin-orbit coupling, and by the multiconfigurational nature of the states involved. This work details an exact two-component multireference restricted active space configuration interaction (X2C-MRRASCI) scheme that uses an exact two-component state average complete active space self-consistent-field method (X2C-SA-CASSCF), which includes the spin-orbit coupling in a variational manner, for the accurate description of the electronic structure before using a restricted active space configuration interaction method to describe the core excited states of the X-ray spectrum. Benchmark calculations are presented for a series of iron containing complexes, with results showing key features of the spectrum being reproduced, including ligand to metal charge transfer and shake-up excitations.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2023

A Perspective on Sustainable Computational Chemistry Software Development and Integration

The power of quantum chemistry to predict the ground and excited state properties of complex chemical systems has driven the development of computational quantum chemistry software, integrating advances in theory, applied mathematics, and computer science. The emergence of new computational paradigms associated with exascale technologies also poses significant challenges that require a flexible forward strategy to take full advantage of existing and forthcoming computational resources. In this context, the sustainability and interoperability of computational chemistry software development are among the most pressing issues. In this perspective, we discuss software infrastructure needs and investments with an eye to fully utilize exascale resources and provide unique computational tools for next-generation science problems and scientific discoveries.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2023

Significance of Energy Conservation in Coupled-Trajectory Approaches to Nonadiabatic Dynamics

Practical methods for simulating photo-induced dynamics of molecules often rely on a trajectory-description of the nuclear dynamics, incorporating approximate electron-nuclear feedback. Through approximating electron–nuclear correlation terms in the exact factorization approach, trajectory-based methods have been derived and successfully applied to the dynamics of a variety of light-induced molecular processes, capturing quantum (de)coherence effects rigorously. These terms account for the coupling among the trajectories, recovering the nonlocal nature of quantum nuclear dynamics that is completely overlooked in traditional independent-trajectory algorithms. Nevertheless, some of the approximations introduced in the derivation of some of these methods do not conserve the total energy. We analyze energy conservation in the coupled trajectory mixed quantum-classical (CTMQC) algorithm and explore the performance of a modified algorithm, CTMQC-E, where some of the terms are redefined to restore energy conservation. Here, a set of molecular models is used as a test, namely, 2-cis-penta-2,4-dienimium cation, bis(methylene) adamantyl radical cation, butatriene cation, uracil radical cation, and neutral pyrazine.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2024

Efficient Parameterization of Density Functional Tight-Binding for 5 f -Elements: A Th–O Case Study

Density functional tight binding (DFTB) models for f-element species are challenging to parametrize owing to the large number of adjustable parameters. The explicit optimization of the terms entering the semiempirical DFTB Hamiltonian related to f orbitals is crucial to generating a reliable parametrization for f-block elements, because they play import roles in bonding interactions. However, since the number of parameters grows quadratically with the number of orbitals, the computational cost for parameter optimization is much more expensive for the f-elements than for the main group elements. In this work we present a set of efficient approaches for mitigating the hurdle imposed by the large size of the parameter space. A novel group-by-orbital correction functions for two-center bond integrals was developed. With this approach the number of parameters is reduced, and it grows linearly with the number of elements, maintaining the accuracy and the number of parameters, in the case of f elements, by more than 40%. The parameter optimization step was accelerated by means of the mini-batch BFGS method. This method allows parameter optimizations with much larger training sets than other single batch methods. A stochastic optimizer was employed that helped overcome shallow local minima in the objective function. The proposed algorithm was used to parametrize the DFTB Hamiltonian for the Th–O system, which was subsequently applied to the study of ThO 2 nanoparticles. The training set consisted of 6322 unique structures, which is barely feasible with conventional optimization methods. The optimized parameter set, LANL-ThO, displays good agreement with DFT-calculated properties such as energies, forces, and structures for both clusters and bulk ThO 2 . Benefiting from the fewer number of parameters and lower computational costs for objective function evaluations, this new approach shows its potential applications in DFTB parametrization for elements with high angular momentum, which present a challenge to conventional methods.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2016

A Nonorthogonal State-Interaction Approach for Matrix Product State Wave Functions

We present a state-interaction approach for matrix product state (MPS) wave functions in a nonorthogonal molecular orbital basis. Our approach allows us to calculate, for example, transition and spin–orbit coupling matrix elements between arbitrary electronic states, provided that they share the same one-electron basis functions and size of the active orbital space, respectively. The key element is the transformation of the MPS wave functions of different states from a nonorthogonal to a biorthonormal molecular orbital basis representation, by exploiting a sequence of nonunitary transformations, following a proposal by Malmqvist [Int. J. Quantum Chem.1986, 30, 479]. This is well-known for traditional wave function parametrizations but has not yet been exploited for MPS wave functions.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2017

An Estimation of Hybrid Quantum Mechanical Molecular Mechanical Polarization Energies for Small Molecules Using Polarizable Force-Field Approaches

Here in this work, we report two polarizable molecular mechanics (polMM) force field models for estimating the polarization energy in hybrid quantum mechanical molecular mechanical (QM/MM) calculations. These two models, named the potential of atomic charges (PAC) and potential of atomic dipoles (PAD), are formulated from the ab initio quantum mechanical (QM) response kernels for the prediction of the QM density response to an external molecular mechanical (MM) environment (as described by external point charges). The PAC model is similar to fluctuating charge (FQ) models because the energy depends on external electrostatic potential values at QM atomic sites; the PAD energy depends on external electrostatic field values at QM atomic sites, resembling induced dipole (ID) models. To demonstrate their uses, we apply the PAC and PAD models to 12 small molecules, which are solvated by TIP3P water. The PAC model reproduces the QM/MM polarization energy with a R 2 value of 0.71 for aniline (in 10,000 TIP3P water configurations) and 0.87 or higher for other eleven solute molecules, while the PAD model has a much better performance with R 2 values of 0.98 or higher. The PAC model reproduces reference QM/MM hydration free energies for 12 solute molecules with a RMSD of 0.59 kcal/mol. The PAD model is even more accurate, with a much smaller RMSD of 0.12 kcal/mol, with respect to the reference. Lastly, this suggests that polarization effects, including both local charge distortion and intramolecular charge transfer, can be well captured by induced dipole type models with proper parametrization.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2017

Diabatic-At-Construction Method for Diabatic and Adiabatic Ground and Excited States Based on Multistate Density Functional Theory

Here, we describe a diabatic-at-construction (DAC) strategy for defining diabatic states to determine the adiabatic ground and excited electronic states and their potential energy surfaces using the multistate density functional theory (MSDFT). The DAC approach differs in two fundamental ways from the adiabatic-to-diabatic (ATD) procedures that transform a set of preselected adiabatic electronic states to a new representation. (1) The DAC states are defined in the first computation step to form an active space, whose configuration interaction produces the adiabatic ground and excited states in the second step of MSDFT. Thus, they do not result from a similarity transformation of the adiabatic states as in the ATD procedure; they are the basis for producing the adiabatic states. The appropriateness and completeness of the DAC active space can be validated by comparison with experimental observables of the ground and excited states. (2) The DAC diabatic states are defined using the valence bond characters of the asymptotic dissociation limits of the adiabatic states of interest, and they are strictly maintained at all molecular geometries. Consequently, DAC diabatic states have specific and well-defined physical and chemical meanings that can be used for understanding the nature of the adiabatic states and their energetic components. Here we present results for the four lowest singlet states of LiH and compare them to a well-tested ATD diabatization method, namely the 3-fold way; the comparison reveals both similarities and differences between the ATD diabatic states and the orthogonalized DAC diabatic states. Furthermore, MSDFT can provide a quantitative description of the ground and excited states for LiH with multiple strongly and weakly avoided curve crossings spanning over 10 Å of interatomic separation.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2017

Accurate Electron Affinities and Orbital Energies of Anions from a Nonempirically Tuned Range-Separated Density Functional Theory Approach

The treatment of atomic anions with Kohn–Sham density functional theory (DFT) has long been controversial because the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) energy, E HOMO , is often calculated to be positive with most approximate density functionals. We assess the accuracy of orbital energies and electron affinities for all three rows of elements in the periodic table (H–Ar) using a variety of theoretical approaches and customized basis sets. Among all of the theoretical methods studied here, we find that a nonempirically tuned range-separated approach (constructed to satisfy DFT-Koopmans’ theorem for the anionic electron system) provides the best accuracy for a variety of basis sets, even for small basis sets where most functionals typically fail. Previous approaches to solve this conundrum of positive E HOMO values have utilized non-self-consistent methods; however, electronic properties, such as electronic couplings/gradients (which require a self-consistent potential and energy), become ill-defined with these approaches. In contrast, the nonempirically tuned range-separated procedure used here yields well-defined electronic couplings/gradients and correct E HOMO values because both the potential and resulting electronic energy are computed self-consistently. Orbital energies and electron affinities are further analyzed in the context of the electronic energy as a function of electronic number (including fractional numbers of electrons) to provide a stringent assessment of self-interaction errors for these complex anion systems.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2017

Photoinduced Charge Transfer versus Fragmentation Pathways in Lanthanum Cyclopentadienyl Complexes

This study compares two competing pathways of photoexcitations in gas-phase metal–organic complexes: first, a sequence of phonon-assisted electronic transitions leading to dissipation of the energy of photoexcitations and, second, a sequence of light-driven electronic transitions leading to photolysis. Phonon-assisted charge carrier dynamics is investigated by combination of the density matrix formalism and on-the-fly nonadiabatic couplings. Light-driven fragmentation is modeled by a time-dependent excited-state molecular-dynamics (TDESMD) algorithm based on Rabi theory and principles similar to the trajectory surface hopping approximation. Numerical results indicate that, under the medium intensity of the laser field, light-driven electronic transitions are more probable than phonon-assisted ones. The formation of multiple products is observed in TDESMD trajectories. Simulated mass spectra are extracted from TDESMD simulations and compared to experimental photoionization time-of-flight (PI-TOF) mass spectra. It is found that several features in the experimental mass spectra are reproduced by the simulations.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2017

Acceleration of Semiempirical QM/MM Methods through Message Passage Interface (MPI), Hybrid MPI/Open Multiprocessing, and Self-Consistent Field Accelerator Implementations

The strategy and implementation of scalable and efficient semiempirical (SE) QM/MM methods in CHARMM are described. The serial version of the code was first profiled to identify routines that required parallelization. Afterward, the code was parallelized and accelerated with three approaches. The first approach was the parallelization of the entire QM/MM routines, including the Fock matrix diagonalization routines, using the CHARMM message passage interface (MPI) machinery. In the second approach, two different self-consistent field (SCF) energy convergence accelerators were implemented using density and Fock matrices as targets for their extrapolations in the SCF procedure. In the third approach, the entire QM/MM and MM energy routines were accelerated by implementing the hybrid MPI/open multiprocessing (OpenMP) model in which both the task- and loop-level parallelization strategies were adopted to balance loads between different OpenMP threads. The present implementation was tested on two solvated enzyme systems (including <100 QM atoms) and an S N 2 symmetric reaction in water. The MPI version exceeded existing SE QM methods in CHARMM, which include the SCC-DFTB and SQUANTUM methods, by at least 4-fold. The use of SCF convergence accelerators further accelerated the code by ~12–35% depending on the size of the QM region and the number of CPU cores used. Although the MPI version displayed good scalability, the performance was diminished for large numbers of MPI processes due to the overhead associated with MPI communications between nodes. This issue was partially overcome by the hybrid MPI/OpenMP approach which displayed a better scalability for a larger number of CPU cores (up to 64 CPUs in the tested systems).

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2017

Franck–Condon Models for Simulating the Band Shape of Electronic Absorption Spectra

Band shape is an essential ingredient in the simulation of electronic absorption spectra. The excitation of multiple series of vibrational levels during an electronic excitation is a main contributor to band shapes. Here we present two simple models based on the Franck–Condon displaced-harmonic-oscillator model. The models are both derived from the time-dependent formulation of electronic spectroscopy. They assume that the transition dipoles do not depend on geometry and that the potential energy surfaces are locally quadratic; one model is second order in time and is called LQ2, and the other is third order in time and is called LQ3. These models are suitable for simulating the unresolved vibronic band shapes of electronic spectra that involve many vibrational modes. The models are straightforward and can be easily applied to simulate absorption spectra that are composed of many electronic transitions. As compared to carrying out molecular dynamics simulations, they require relatively few electronic structure calculations, and the additional cost for constructing the spectra is negligible. Therefore, the models are suitable for simulating the spectra of complex systems such as transition-metal complexes.

UV/Vis spectroscopy↗
DOE OSTI2017

Tensor-Train Split-Operator Fourier Transform (TT-SOFT) Method: Multidimensional Nonadiabatic Quantum Dynamics

We introduce the “tensor-train split-operator Fourier transform” (TT-SOFT) method for simulations of multidimensional nonadiabatic quantum dynamics. TT-SOFT is essentially the grid-based SOFT method implemented in dynamically adaptive tensor-train representations. In the same spirit of all matrix product states, the tensor-train format enables the representation, propagation, and computation of observables of multidimensional wave functions in terms of the grid-based wavepacket tensor components, bypassing the need of actually computing the wave function in its full-rank tensor product grid space. We demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of the TT-SOFT method as applied to propagation of 24-dimensional wave packets, describing the S 1 / S 2 interconversion dynamics of pyrazine after UV photoexcitation to the S 2 state. Furthermore, our results show that the TT-SOFT method is a powerful computational approach for simulations of quantum dynamics of polyatomic systems since it avoids the exponential scaling problem of full-rank grid-based representations.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2017

How Well Can the M06 Suite of Functionals Describe the Electron Densities of Ne, Ne 6+ , and Ne 8+ ?

The development of better approximations to the exact exchange-correlation functional is essential to the accuracy of density functionals. A recent study indicated that functionals with few parameters offer more accurate electron densities than recently developed many-parameter functionals for light closed-shell atomic systems. In this study, we calculated electron densities, their gradients, and Laplacians of Ne, Ne 6+ , and Ne 8+ using 19 electronic structure methods, and we compared them to the CCSD reference results. Two basis sets, namely, aug-cc-pωCV5Z and aug-cc-pV5Z, are utilized in the calculations. We found that the choice of basis set has a significant impact on the errors and rankings of some of the selected methods. The errors of electron densities, their gradients, and Laplacians calculated with the aug-cc-pV5Z basis set are substantially reduced, especially for Minnesota density functionals, as compared to the results using the aug-cc-pωCV5Z basis set (a larger basis set utilized in earlier work (Medvedev et al. Science2017, 355, 49–52)). The rankings of the M06 suite of functionals among the 19 methods are greatly improved with the aug-cc-pV5Z basis set. Furthermore, the performances of the HSE06, BMK, MN12-L, and MN12-SX functionals are also improved with the aug-cc-pV5Z basis set. The M06 suite of functionals is capable of providing accurate electron densities, gradients, and Laplacians using the aug-cc-pV5Z basis set, and thus it is suitable for a wide range of applications in chemistry and physics.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2018

Exploring the Rich Potential Energy Surface of (H 2 O) 11 and Its Physical Implications

The rich potential energy surface of the water undecamer (H 2 O) 11 was explored with a basin hopping algorithm using a TIP 4 P potential and other methods followed by extensive ab initio MP2 minimizations and CCSD(T) corrections. This protocol yielded 17, 66, and 125 distinct isomers within 0.5, 1.0, and 2.0 kcal mol –1 of the complete basis set CCSD(T) global minimum, respectively. These isomers were categorized into 15 different families based on their oxygen framework and hydrogen bonding topology. Determination of the global minimum proved challenging because of the presence of many nearly isoenergetic isomers. The predicted global minimum varied among ab initio methods, density functionals, and model potentials, and it was sensitive to the choice of energy extrapolation schemes, higher-order CCSD(T) corrections, and inclusion of zero-point vibrational energy. In conclusion, the presence of a large number of nearly degenerate structures and the isomerization between them has manifested itself in the anomalous broadening of the heat capacity curve of the undecamer in simulations around the melting region.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗