The many dimensions of electronic wave functions makes them difficult to analyze and interpret. It is often convenient to reduce this large number of dimensions, yielding simpler functions that can more readily provide chemical insight. The most familiar of these is the one-electron density 
, which gives the probability of an electron being found at the point 
. Analogously, the one-electron momentum density 
 gives the probability that an electron will have a momentum of 
. However, the wave function is reduced to the one-electron density much information is lost. In particular, it is often desirable to retain explicit two-electron information. Intracules are two-electron distribution functions and provide information about the relative position and momentum of electrons. A detailed account of the different type of intracules can be found in Ref. Gill:2003. Q-Chem’s intracule package was developed by Aaron Lee and Nick Besley, and can compute the following intracules for or HF wave functions: 
Position intracules, 
: describes the probability of finding two electrons separated by a distance 
. 
Momentum intracules, 
: describes the probability of finding two electrons with relative momentum 
. 
Wigner intracule, 
: describes the combined probability of finding two electrons separated by 
 and with relative momentum 
. 
The intracule density, 
, represents the probability for the inter-electronic vector 
: 
![]()  | 
    
    (10.13) | 
 where 
 is the two-electron density. A simpler quantity is the spherically averaged intracule density, 
![]()  | 
    
    (10.14) | 
 where 
 is the angular part of 
, measures the probability that two electrons are separated by a scalar distance 
. This intracule is called a position intracule [563]. If the molecular orbitals are expanded within a basis set 
![]()  | 
    
    (10.15) | 
 The quantity 
 can be expressed as 
![]()  | 
    
    (10.16) | 
 where 
 is the two-particle density matrix and 
 is the position integral 
![]()  | 
    
    (10.17) | 
 and 
, 
, 
 and 
 are basis functions. For HF wave functions, the position intracule can be decomposed into a Coulomb component, 
![]()  | 
    
    (10.18) | 
and an exchange component,
![]()  | 
    
    (10.19) | 
 where 
 etc. are density matrix elements. The evaluation of 
, 
 and 
 within Q-Chem has been described in detail in Ref. Lee:1999. 
Some of the moments of 
 are physically significant [565], for example 
![]()  | 
    
    
    
        ![]()  | 
    
    
    
        ![]()  | 
    
    
    
    (10.20) | ||
![]()  | 
    
    
    
        ![]()  | 
    
    
    
        ![]()  | 
    
    
    
    (10.21) | ||
![]()  | 
    
    
    
        ![]()  | 
    
    
    
        ![]()  | 
    
    
    
    (10.22) | ||
![]()  | 
    
    
    
        ![]()  | 
    
    
    
        ![]()  | 
    
    
    
    (10.23) | 
 where 
 is the number of electrons and, 
 is the electronic dipole moment and 
 is the trace of the electronic quadrupole moment tensor. Q-Chem can compute both moments and derivatives of position intracules. 
Analogous quantities can be defined in momentum space; 
, for example, represents the probability density for the relative momentum 
: 
![]()  | 
    
    (10.24) | 
 where 
 momentum two-electron density. Similarly, the spherically averaged intracule 
![]()  | 
    
    (10.25) | 
 where 
 is the angular part of 
, is a measure of relative momentum 
 and is called the momentum intracule. The quantity 
 can be written as 
![]()  | 
    
    (10.26) | 
 where 
 is the two-particle density matrix and 
 is the momentum integral [566] 
![]()  | 
    
    (10.27) | 
The momentum integrals only possess four-fold permutational symmetry, i.e.,
![]()  | 
    
    
    
    (10.28) | ||
![]()  | 
    
    
    
    (10.29) | 
 and therefore generation of 
 is roughly twice as expensive as 
. Momentum intracules can also be decomposed into Coulomb 
 and exchange 
 components: 
![]()  | 
    
    (10.30) | 
![]()  | 
    
    (10.31) | 
Again, the even-order moments are physically significant [566]:
![]()  | 
    
    (10.32) | 
![]()  | 
    
    (10.33) | 
![]()  | 
    
    (10.34) | 
![]()  | 
    
    (10.35) | 
 where 
 is the number of electrons and 
 is the total electronic kinetic energy. Currently, Q-Chem can compute 
, 
 and 
 using 
 and 
 basis functions only. Moments are generated using quadrature and consequently for accurate results 
 must be computed over a large and closely spaced 
 range. 
The intracules 
 and 
 provide a representation of an electron distribution in either position or momentum space but neither alone can provide a complete description. For a combined position and momentum description an intracule in phase space is required. Defining such an intracule is more difficult since there is no phase space second-order reduced density. However, the second-order Wigner distribution [567], 
![]()  | 
    
    (10.36) | 
 can be interpreted as the probability of finding an electron at 
 with momentum 
 and another electron at 
 with momentum 
. [The quantity 
 is often referred to as “quasi-probability distribution” since it is not positive everywhere.] 
The Wigner distribution can be used in an analogous way to the second order reduced densities to define a combined position and momentum intracule. This intracule is called a Wigner intracule, and is formally defined as
![]()  | 
    
    (10.37) | 
 If the orbitals are expanded in a basis set, then 
 can be written as 
![]()  | 
    
    (10.38) | 
 where (
 is the Wigner integral 
![]()  | 
    
    (10.39) | 
Wigner integrals are similar to momentum integrals and only have four-fold permutational symmetry. Evaluating Wigner integrals is considerably more difficult that their position or momentum counterparts. The fundamental 
 integral, 
![]()  | 
    
    
    
        ![]()  | 
    
    
    
        ![]()  | 
    
    
    
    |||
![]()  | 
    
    
    
        ![]()  | 
    
    
    
        ![]()  | 
    
    
    
    (10.40) | 
can be expressed as
![]()  | 
    
    (10.41) | 
or alternatively
![]()  | 
    
    (10.42) | 
Two approaches for evaluating 
 have been implemented in Q-Chem, full details can be found in Ref. Wigner:1932. The first approach uses the first form of 
 and used Lebedev quadrature to perform the remaining integrations over 
. For high accuracy large Lebedev grids [148, 146, 149] should be used, grids of up to 5294 points are available in Q-Chem. Alternatively, the second form can be adopted and the integrals evaluated by summation of a series. Currently, both methods have been implemented within Q-Chem for 
 and 
 basis functions only. 
When computing intracules it is most efficient to locate the loop over 
 and/or 
 points within the loop over shell-quartets [569]. However, for 
 this requires a large amount of memory to store all the integrals arising from each 
 point. Consequently, an additional scheme, in which the 
 and 
 points loop is outside the shell-quartet loop, is available. This scheme is less efficient, but substantially reduces the memory requirements. 
The following $rem variables can be used to control the calculation of intracules.
INTRACULE
Controls whether intracule properties are calculated (see also the $intracule section).
TYPE:
LOGICAL
DEFAULT:
FALSE
OPTIONS:
FALSE
No intracule properties.
TRUE
Evaluate intracule properties.
RECOMMENDATION:
None
WIG_MEM
Reduce memory required in the evaluation of
.
TYPE:
LOGICAL
DEFAULT:
FALSE
OPTIONS:
FALSE
Do not use low memory option.
TRUE
Use low memory option.
RECOMMENDATION:
The low memory option is slower, so use the default unless memory is limited.
WIG_LEB
Use Lebedev quadrature to evaluate Wigner integrals.
TYPE:
LOGICAL
DEFAULT:
FALSE
OPTIONS:
FALSE
Evaluate Wigner integrals through series summation.
TRUE
Use quadrature for Wigner integrals.
RECOMMENDATION:
None
WIG_GRID
Specify angular Lebedev grid for Wigner intracule calculations.
TYPE:
INTEGER
DEFAULT:
194
OPTIONS:
Lebedev grids up to 5810 points.
RECOMMENDATION:
Larger grids if high accuracy required.
N_WIG_SERIES
Sets summation limit for Wigner integrals.
TYPE:
INTEGER
DEFAULT:
10
OPTIONS:
![]()
RECOMMENDATION:
Increase
for greater accuracy.
N_I_SERIES
Sets summation limit for series expansion evaluation of
.
TYPE:
INTEGER
DEFAULT:
40
OPTIONS:
![]()
RECOMMENDATION:
Lower values speed up the calculation, but may affect accuracy.
N_J_SERIES
Sets summation limit for series expansion evaluation of
.
TYPE:
INTEGER
DEFAULT:
40
OPTIONS:
![]()
RECOMMENDATION:
Lower values speed up the calculation, but may affect accuracy.
int_type  | 
    
    0  | 
    
     Compute   | 
1  | 
    
     Compute   | 
|
2  | 
    
     Compute   | 
|
3  | 
    
     Compute   | 
|
4  | 
    
     Compute   | 
|
5  | 
    
     Compute   | 
|
6  | 
    
     Compute   | 
|
u_points  | 
    
    Number of points, start, end.  | 
|
v_points  | 
    
    Number of points, start, end.  | 
|
moments  | 
    
    0–4  | 
    
     Order of moments to be computed (  | 
derivs  | 
    
    0–4  | 
    
     order of derivatives to be computed (  | 
accuracy  | 
    
       | 
    
     (  | 
 Example 10.226  Compute HF/STO-3G 
, 
 and 
 for Ne, using Lebedev quadrature with 974 point grid. 
 
$molecule
   0  1
   Ne
$end
$rem
   METHOD      hf
   BASIS       sto-3g
   INTRACULE   true
   WIG_LEB     true
   WIG_GRID    974
$end
$intracule
   int_type   3
   u_points  10   0.0  10.0
   v_points   8   0.0   8.0
   moments    4
   derivs     4
   accuracy   8
$end
 
 Example 10.227  Compute HF/6-31G 
 intracules for H
O using series summation up to 
=25 and 30 terms in the series evaluations of 
 and 
. 
 
$molecule
   0  1
   H1
   O   H1  r
   H2  O   r  H1  theta
   r = 1.1
   theta = 106
$end
$rem
   METHOD         hf
   BASIS          6-31G
   INTRACULE      true
   WIG_MEM        true
   N_WIG_SERIES   25
   N_I_SERIES     40
   N_J_SERIES     50
$end
$intracule
   int_type    2
   u_points   30   0.0   15.0
   v_points   20   0.0   10.0
$end