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Excitons: Energetics and spatiotemporal dynamics

The concept of an exciton as a quasiparticle that represents collective excited states was originally adapted from solid-state physics and has been successfully applied to molecular aggregates by relying on the well-established limits of the Wannier exciton and the Frenkel exciton. However, the study of excitons in more complex chemical systems and solid materials over the past two decades has made it clear that simple concepts based on Wannier or Frenkel excitons are not sufficient to describe detailed excitonic behavior, especially in nano-structured solid materials, multichromophoric macromolecules, and complex molecular aggregates. In addition, important effects such as vibronic coupling, the influence of charge-transfer (CT) components, spin-state interconversion, and electronic correlation, which had long been studied but not fully understood, have turned out to play a central role in many systems. This has motivated new experimental approaches and theoretical studies of increasing sophistication. This article provides an overview of works addressing these issues that were published for A Special Topic of the Journal of Chemical Physics on ``Excitons: Energetics and spatio-temporal dynamics" and discusses their implications.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Nonadiabatic couplings from a variational excited state method based on constrained DFT

Excited Costrained Density Functional Theory (XCDFT) is a variational excited state method that extends ground state DFT to the computation of low-lying excited states. It borrows much of the machinery of Constrained DFT (CDFT) with a crucial difference: the constraint imposes a population of one electron in the Hilbert space spanned by the virtuals of a reference ground state. Here, we present theory and implementation for evaluating nonadiabatic coupling vectors (NACVs) between the first excited state computed with XCDFT and the ground state. Our NACVs are computed analytically using density functional perturbation theory with a formalism that is general enough that could be applied to CDFT diabatic states. We showcase the new method with pilot NACV calculations for the conical intersection in H 3 , the avoided crossing in selenoacrolein, and the NACV magnitudes in azobenzene. Despite complications from the nonorthogonality of the wavefunctions, XCDFT’s energy surfaces and NACVs reproduce benchmark values and respect known sum rules within a reasonable degree. This shows that XCDFT is a viable method for nonadiabatic dynamics simulations.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Vibronic exciton model for low bandgap donor–acceptor polymers

In this study, a vibronic exciton model is introduced to describe the excited state band structure and associated absorption spectra of low bandgap donor–acceptor conjugated polymers. The Hamiltonian is represented in a diabatic basis consisting of Frenkel-like donor and acceptor fragment excitations as well as charge-transfer (CT) excitations between neighboring fragments. States are coupled to each other through electron and hole transfer as well as Coulombically, through interacting fragment transition dipole moments. Local vibronic coupling involving the prominent aromatic-quinoidal vibrational mode, which is responsible for pronounced vibronic progressions in most conjugated oligomers and polymers, is also included. The DAD repeat unit is shown to behave like a J-aggregate trimer, driven by both the sizable in-phase electron and hole transfer integrals between donor and acceptor fragments as well as negative Coulomb coupling between donor and acceptor fragment excitations. The J-aggregate behavior is enhanced in the polymer limit through inter-repeat unit coupling, with the 0–0 vibronic peak significantly enhanced in the lowest-energy near-IR band. In addition, the radiative rate is enhanced by the number of coherently connected repeat units. The near-IR band is shown to possess roughly equal admixtures of CT and Frenkel-like excitations. Applications are made to the polymer PffBT4T-2DT, with the simulated absorption spectrum quantitatively capturing the salient features of the measured spectrum.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Field validation of an actuated convergent-beam acoustic Doppler profiler for high resolution flow mapping

Abstract Energetic river and tidal flow environments feature complex hydrodynamic conditions. Conventional acoustic Doppler profiling instrumentation typically requires assumptions of flow homogeneity over the spatial scales of the divergent beam separation. This removes the ability to measure spatio-temporal variability within the flow. However, velocity variability within these spatial scales is often important in the design of structures and devices exposed to such flow, informing dynamic and peak hydrodynamic load predictions. The research presented outlines the development and testing of a flow measurement instrument consisting of multiple spatially-separated single beam acoustic Doppler profilers converging on a remote focal point, the location of which can be programmatically adjusted through actuation. This increases the spatial resolution at which remote field measurements can be made in energetic flow environments. Field testing of the instrument was conducted in a tidal channel at Sequim Bay Inlet, WA, USA. Results are compared with independent reference measurements made by a co-located, motion-corrected acoustic Doppler velocimeter. This comparison, across tidal velocities of 0.4–0.7 m s −1 , showed a mean velocity error of 0.5%–13.2% across nine sample locations within a 3.00 m × 2.25 m plane. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first publication of flow velocity results from non-intrusive acoustic measurements at an off-axis, focal point location that features 3D positional control.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗

Global Simulation of Electromagnetic Ion Cyclotron Waves

It is very well known that the effects of electromagnetic ion cyclotron (EMIC) waves on ring current (RC) ion and radiation belt (RB) electron dynamics strongly depend on such particle/wave characteristics as the phase-space distribution function, frequency, wave-normal angle, wave energy, and the form of wave spectral energy density. The consequence is that accurate modeling of EMIC waves and RC particles requires robust inclusion of the interdependent dynamics of wave growth/damping, wave propagation, and particles. Such a self-consistent model is being progressively developed by Khazanov et al. This model is based on a system of coupled kinetic equations for the RC and EMIC wave power spectral density along with the ray tracing equations. We will discuss the recent progress in understanding EMIC waves formation mechanisms in the inner magnetosphere. This problem remains unsettled in spite of many years of experimental and theoretical studies. Modern satellite observations by CRRES, Polar and Cluster still do not reveal the whole picture experimentally since they do not stay long enough in the generation region to give a full account of all the spatio-temporal structure of EMIC waves. The complete self-consistent theory taking into account all factors significant for EMIC waves generation remains to be developed. Several mechanisms are discussed with respect to formation of EMIC waves, among them are nonlinear modification of the ionospheric reflection by precipitating energetic protons, modulation of ion-cyclotron instability by long-period (Pc3/4) pulsations, reflection of waves from layers of heavy-ion gyroresonances, and nonlinearities of wave generation process. We show that each of these mechanisms have their attractive features and explains certain part experimental data but any of them, if taken alone, meets some difficulties when compared to observations. We conclude that development of a refined nonlinear theory and further correlated analysis of modern satellite and ground-based data is needed to solve this very intriguing problem.

Khazanov, George V.↗

Global Simulation of Electromagnetic Ion Cyclotron Waves

It is well known that the effects of electromagnetic ion cyclotron (EMIC) waves on ring current (RC) ion and radiation belt (RB) electron dynamics strongly depend on such particle/wave characteristics as the phase-space distribution function, frequency, wave-normal angle, wave energy, and the form of wave spectral energy density. The consequence is that accurate modeling of EMIC waves and RC particles requires robust inclusion of the interdependent dynamics of wave growth/damping, wave propagation, and particles. Such a self-consistent model is being progressively developed by Khazanov et al. [2002 - 2007]. This model is based on a system of coupled kinetic equations for the RC and EMIC wave power spectral density along with the ray tracing equations. We will discuss the recent progress in understanding EMIC waves formation mechanisms in the inner magnetosphere. This problem remains unsettled in spite of many years of experimental and theoretical studies. Modern satellite observations by CRRES, Polar and Cluster still do not reveal the whole picture experimentally since they do not stay long enough in the generation region to give a full account of all the spatio-temporal structure of EMIC waves. The complete self-consistent theory taking into account all factors significant for EMIC waves generation remains to be developed. Several mechanisms are discussed with respect to formation of EMIC waves, among them are nonlinear modification of the ionospheric reflection by precipitating energetic protons, modulation of ion-cyclotron instability by long-period (Pc3/4) pulsations, reflection of waves from layers of heavy-ion gyroresonances, and nonlinearities of wave generation process. We show that each of these mechanisms have their attractive features and explains certain part experimental data but any of them, if taken alone, meets some difficulties when compared to observations. We conclude that development of a refined nonlinear theory and further correlated analysis of modern satellite and ground-based data is needed to solve this very intriguing problem.

Khazanov, G. V.↗