Weitao Yang and co-workers439, 187 have shown that the reduced density gradient,
(11.17) |
provides a convenient indicator of noncovalent interactions, which are characterized by large density gradients in regions of space where the density itself is small, leading to very large values of . Q-Chem can generate noncovalent interactions (NCI) plots of the function in three-dimensional space. To generate these, set the PLOT_REDUCED_DENSITY_GRAD $rem variable to TRUE. (See the nci-c8h14.in input example in $QC/samples directory.)