Several options for computing spin-orbit couplings (SOCs) between TDDFT states are available:
one-electron part of the Breit-Pauli Hamiltonian,
one-electron SOC using scaled nuclear charges, and
full SOC using the mean-field treatment of the two-electron part.
Options (i) and (ii) are are available for both TDA and RPA variants (including TDHF and CIS states), for restricted Kohn-Sham references only. Option (iii) is available for both restricted and unrestricted variants, but only within TDA. Calculations of SOC for SF-TDDFT are also possible within TDA using option (iii).
The implementation of one-electron SOC, options (i) and (ii), is based on the following. The SOCs are computed by evaluating matrix elements of the one-electron part of the Breit-Pauli Hamiltonian:
(7.20) |
where denotes electrons, denotes nuclei, is the fine structure constant, and is the bare positive charge on nucleus . In the second quantization representation, the spin-orbit Hamiltonian in different directions can be expressed as
(7.21a) | ||||
(7.21b) | ||||
(7.21c) |
where for and are the matrix elements of this operator. The single-reference ab initio excited states (within the TDA) are given by
(7.22a) | ||||
(7.22b) | ||||
(7.22c) | ||||
(7.22d) |
where and are singlet and triplet excitation coefficients of the th singlet or triplet state respectively, with the normalization
(7.23) |
The quantity refers to the Hartree-Fock ground state. Thus the SOC constant from the singlet state to different triplet manifolds are
(7.24) |
or
(7.25) |
The SOC constant between different triplet manifolds can be obtained as
(7.26) |
or
(7.27) |
Note that
(7.28) |
The total (root-mean-square) spin-orbit coupling is
(7.29a) | ||||
(7.29b) |
For RPA states, the SOC constant can simply be obtained by replacing with and with .
The calculation of SOCs using effective nuclear charges, option (ii), is described in Section 7.10.20.4.
The calculations of SOCs using option (iii), with a mean-field treatment of the two-electron part,
is implemented following the algorithm described in
Refs.
1028
J. Chem. Phys.
(2019),
151,
pp. 034106.
Link
,
675
J. Chem. Phys.
(2022),
157,
pp. 224110.
Link
and outlined in Section 7.10.20.4.
The SOC calculation is activated by $rem variable CALC_SOC: CALC_SOC = 1 activates option (i), CALC_SOC = 4 activates option (ii), and CALC_SOC = 2 activates option (iii).
Note: Setting CALC_SOC = TRUE activates a one-electron calculation using old algorithm, i.e., option (i).
CALC_SOC
CALC_SOC
Controls whether to calculate the SOC constants for EOM-CC, RAS-CI, CIS, TDDFT/TDA and TDDFT/RPA.
TYPE:
INTEGER/LOGICAL
DEFAULT:
FALSE
OPTIONS:
FALSE
Do not perform the SOC calculation.
TRUE
Perform the SOC calculation.
RECOMMENDATION:
Although TRUE and FALSE values will work, EOM-CC code has more variants of SOC evaluations.
For details, consult with the EOM section. For TDDFT/CIS, one can use values 1, 2, and 4, as explained above.
Examples 7.3.7.1, 7.3.7.1, and 7.3.7.1 illustrate calculations of SOCs for (SF)-TDDFT states using the above features. These calculations can also be carried out for CIS states by modifying METHOD appropriately.
The libwfa analysis of the spinless one-particle transition density
matrices (as described in Ref.
1030
J. Phys. Chem. Lett.
(2019),
10,
pp. 4857–4862.
Link
)
is implemented for the TDDFT and SF-TDDFT calculations.
To activate this analysis, use the following: CALC_SOC = 2,
STATE_ANALYSIS = TRUE, MOLDEN_FORMAT = TRUE,
and NTO_PAIRS =
(see Section 10.2 for details of the libwfa package).
Note:
This analysis differs from the NTO analysis of the regular transition density matrix between the singlet and triplet states.
$comment This sample input calculates the spin-orbit coupling constants for water between its ground state and its TDDFT/TDA excited triplets as well as the coupling between its TDDFT/TDA singlets and triplets. Results are given in cm-1. $end $molecule 0 1 H 0.000000 -0.115747 1.133769 H 0.000000 1.109931 -0.113383 O 0.000000 0.005817 -0.020386 $end $rem EXCHANGE b3lyp BASIS 6-31G CIS_N_ROOTS 4 CIS_CONVERGENCE 8 MAX_SCF_CYCLES 600 MAX_CIS_CYCLES 50 SCF_ALGORITHM diis MEM_STATIC 300 MEM_TOTAL 2000 CIS_SINGLETS true CIS_TRIPLETS true CALC_SOC true MAX_CIS_CYCLES 300 INTEGRAL_SYMMETRY false POINT_GROUP_SYMMETRY false $end
$comment Calculation of full SOCs for water molecule inlcuding mean-field treatment of the two-electron part of the Breit-Pauli Hamiltonian and Wigner-Eckart theorem. UHF/TDDFT/B3LYP/6-31G within the TDA. $end $molecule 0 1 H 0.000000 -0.115747 1.133769 H 0.000000 1.109931 -0.113383 O 0.000000 0.005817 -0.020386 $end $rem jobtype sp unrestricted true method b3lyp basis 6-31G cis_n_roots 4 cis_convergence 8 cis_singlets true cis_triplets true calc_soc 2 $end
$comment Calculation of SOCs for methylene using non-collinear SF-TDDFT/PBE0, with tight convergence. $end $molecule 0 3 H1 C H1 1.0775 H2 C 1.0775 H1 133.29 $end $rem method = pbe0 basis = cc-pvtz scf_convergence = 12 cis_convergence = 12 THRESH = 14 cis_n_roots = 2 calc_soc = 2 Compute full SOC with mean-field treatment of 2el part WANG_ZIEGLER_KERNEL = TRUE Important for 1,1 diradicals spin_flip = TRUE $end
For a system exhibiting strong SOC, it can be extremely helpful to calculate the electronic eigenfunctions (called “spin-adiabats”) of the entire (Coulomb + SOC) Hamiltonian. Computation of such spin-adiabatic states has been implemented within the CIS or TDDFT/TDA framework, with the SOC treated by the one-electron Breit-Pauli Hamiltonian at the post-SCF level.
Within a CIS or TDDFT/TDA-SOC, the wavefunction is represented as
(7.30) |
where is a label of spin, and
(7.31) |
The spin-adiabatic wavefunctions in Eq. (7.30) are obtained as the eigenstates of following Hamiltonian having total matrix elements:
(7.32) |
In Eq. (7.32), is the usual CIS-like TDDFT/TDA linear response matrix (including the one-electron and two-electron terms):
(7.33) |
where the indices are the spin-orbitals, is the Fock matrix, is the SCF energy, and is the DFT exchange-correlation functional. More details can be found in Sec. 7.3.1 and Ref.
100
J. Chem. Phys.
(2020),
152,
pp. 044112.
Link
.
The in Eq. (7.32) is the one-electron SOC Hamiltonian appearing in Eq. (7.20), and the is the spin-Zeeman term. Here is assumed. (The coupling between orbital motion and magnetic field is not yet included.) In matrix form, reads
(7.34) |
The matrix elements of are given by
(7.35) | ||||
(7.36) | ||||
(7.37) | ||||
(7.38) |
where is the fine-structure constant and .
Note: Currently, this CIS or TDDFT/TDA-SOC implementation supports only restricted SCF calculations (which would produce excited state singlets and triplets in the absence of SOC). Also, the ground state is not coupled to the excited states through SOC (or otherwise).
The code is triggered by setting $rem variable CIS_SOC = , where is the number of roots desired:
CIS_SOC
CIS_SOC
Controls the roots of performing TDDFT/TDA-SOC calculation.
TYPE:
INTEGER/LOGICAL
DEFAULT:
FALSE
OPTIONS:
FALSE
Do not perform the calculation.
Solve the lowest spin-adiabatic states of TDDFT/TDA-SOC.
RECOMMENDATION:
Less than or equal to CIS_N_ROOTS. TDDFT/TDA-SOC first performs a standard TDDFT/TDA calculation so as
to generate an initial guess before rerunning the diagonalization to generate the spin adiabats. Therefore, it is a good idea to perform
a stand-alone normal TDDFT/TDA calculation and generate the excited spin-diabats and check the desired range of energies,
before generating the excited spin-adiabats.
To include a post-SCF magnetic field, the $bfield_postscf section must be initialized:
$bfield_postscf B_x B_y B_z $end
Here, the are the spatial components of the external magnetic field in Tesla. Their format must be float (i.e., “0” should be “0.0”).
Derivative coupling calculations are possible between spin-adiabats, but note that the value of the real and imaginary components may vary between different calculations – because the wavefunctions are complex-valued and may acquire a different global phase (gauge) for each calculation. The norm of derivative coupling should not change.
Examples 7.3.7.2, 7.3.7.2 and 7.3.7.2 illustrate the energy, gradient and derivative coupling calculations using TDDFT/TDA-SOC. In Example 7.3.7.2, a post-SCF external magnetic field is also included.
$rem jobtype sp exchange wb97x basis 6-31g cis_convergence 8 cis_n_roots 2 symmetry false sym_ignore true cis_soc 7 $end $molecule 0 1 C 0 0 0 H 0 0 1.101224 H 1.00171657 0 -0.45744749 O -1.00461935 0 -0.645642 $end
$rem jobtype force exchange wb97x basis 6-31g cis_convergence 8 cis_n_roots 2 symmetry false sym_ignore true cis_soc 4 cis_state_deriv 4 new_dft 1 ! This is necessary $end $molecule 0 1 C 0 0 0 H 0 0 1.101224 H 1.00171657 0 -0.45744749 O -1.00461935 0 -0.645642 $end
$rem jobtype sp exchange wb97x basis 6-31g scf_convergence 10 cis_convergence 10 cis_n_roots 2 symmetry false sym_ignore true cis_soc 7 calc_nac true cis_der_numstate 2 $end $derivative_coupling ... 4 7 $end $bfield_postscf 0.0 0.0 10.0 $end $molecule 0 1 C -0.0827555811 -0.0021927111 0.0742168160 C 0.0163712008 -0.0019362341 1.3503524350 H 0.9426483579 -0.0021873514 1.9554892885 C -1.2462538108 -0.0012178895 2.1035447415 H -1.1928615664 -0.0009432042 3.1942205420 C -2.4029093145 -0.0008942470 1.4089112839 H -3.3571329386 -0.0003915665 1.9718859042 C -2.4418611557 -0.0012099958 0.0672877891 H -3.3674530317 -0.0009676703 -0.5174127708 C -1.1678601986 -0.0019316068 -0.6798528411 H -1.2448466539 -0.0022668669 -1.7738119236 C 1.1607172056 -0.0028394281 -0.8113481262 H 1.2563061018 -0.0031882755 -1.8250763954 O 2.4950317353 -0.0032860998 -0.1735593327 $end