Magnetizability and rotational g tensors for density fitted local second-order Møller-Plesset perturbation theory using gauge-including atomic orbitals

Molecular Pseudorotation in Phthalocyanines as a Tool for Magnetic Field Control at the Nanoscale

Metal phthalocyanines, a highly versatile class of aromatic, planar, macrocyclic molecules with a chelated central metal ion, are topical objects of ongoing research and particularly interesting due to their magnetic properties. However, while the current focus lies almost exclusively on spin-Zeeman-related effects, the high symmetry of the molecule and its circular shape suggests the exploitation of light-induced excitation of 2-fold degenerate vibrational states in order to generate, switch, and manipulate magnetic fields at the nanoscale. The underlying mechanism is a molecular pseudorotation that can be triggered by infrared pulses and gives rise to a quantized, small, but controllable magnetic dipole moment. We investigate the optical stimulation of vibrationally induced molecular magnetism and estimate changes in the magnetic shielding constants for confirmation by future experiments.

Revisiting Gauge-Independent Kinetic Energy Densities in Meta-GGAs and Local Hybrid Calculations of Magnetizabilities

In a recent study [J. Chem. Theory Comput. 2021, 17, 1457-1468], some of us examined the accuracy of magnetizabilities calculated with density functionals representing the local density approximation (LDA), generalized gradient approximation (GGA), meta-GGA (mGGA), as well as global hybrid (GH) and range-separated (RS) hybrid functionals by assessment against accurate reference values obtained with coupled-cluster theory with singles, doubles, and perturbative triples [CCSD(T)]. Our study was later extended to local hybrid (LH) functionals by Holzer et al. [J. Chem. Theory Comput. 2021, 17, 2928-2947]; in this work, we examine a larger selection of LH functionals, also including range-separated LH (RSLH) functionals and strong-correlation LH (scLH) functionals. Holzer et al. also studied the importance of the physically correct handling of the magnetic gauge dependence of the kinetic energy density (τ) in mGGA calculations by comparing the Maximoff-Scuseria formulation of τ used in our aforementioned study to the more physical current-density extension derived by Dobson. In this work, we also revisit this comparison with a larger selection of mGGA functionals. We find that the newly tested LH, RSLH, and scLH functionals outperform all of the functionals considered in the previous studies. The various LH functionals afford the seven lowest mean absolute errors while also showing remarkably small standard deviations and mean errors. Most strikingly, the best two functionals are scLHs that also perform remarkably well in cases with significant multiconfigurational character, such as the ozone molecule, which is traditionally excluded from statistical error evaluations due to its large errors with common density functionals.

Current density and molecular magnetic properties

We give an overview of the molecular response to an external magnetic field perturbing quantum mechanical systems. We present state-of-the-art methods for calculating magnetically-induced current-density susceptibilities. We discuss the essence and properties of current-density susceptibilities and how molecular magnetic properties can be calculated from them. We also review the theory of spin-current densities, how relativity affects current densities and magnetic properties. An overview of the magnetic ring-current criterion for aromaticity is given, which has implications on theoretical and experimental research. The recently reported theory of antiaromaticity and how molecular symmetry affects the magnetic response are discussed and applied to closed-shell paramagnetic molecules. The topology of magnetically induced current densities and its consequences for molecular magnetic properties are also presented with twisted and toroidal molecules as examples.

DLPNO-MP2 second derivatives for the computation of polarizabilities and NMR shieldings

We present a derivation and efficient implementation of the formally complete analytic second derivatives for the domain-based local pair natural orbital second order Møller-Plesset perturbation theory (MP2) method, applicable to electric or magnetic field-response properties but not yet to harmonic frequencies. We also discuss the occurrence and avoidance of numerical instability issues related to singular linear equation systems and near linear dependences in the projected atomic orbital domains. A series of benchmark calculations on medium-sized systems is performed to assess the effect of the local approximation on calculated nuclear magnetic resonance shieldings and the static dipole polarizabilities. Relative deviations from the resolution of the identity-based MP2 (RI-MP2) reference for both properties are below 0.5% with the default truncation thresholds. For large systems, our implementation achieves quadratic effective scaling, is more efficient than RI-MP2 starting at 280 correlated electrons, and is never more than 5-20 times slower than the equivalent Hartree-Fock property calculation. The largest calculation performed here was on the vancomycin molecule with 176 atoms, 542 correlated electrons, and 4700 basis functions and took 3.3 days on 12 central processing unit cores.

Benchmarking Magnetizabilities with Recent Density Functionals

We have assessed the accuracy of the magnetic properties of a set of 51 density functional approximations, including both recently published and already established functionals. The accuracy assessment considers a series of 27 small molecules and is based on comparing the predicted magnetizabilities to literature reference values calculated using coupled-cluster theory with full singles and doubles and perturbative triples [CCSD(T)] employing large basis sets. The most accurate magnetizabilities, defined as the smallest mean absolute error, are obtained with the BHandHLYP functional. Three of the six studied Berkeley functionals and the three range-separated Florida functionals also yield accurate magnetizabilities. Also, some older functionals like CAM-B3LYP, KT1, BHLYP (BHandH), B3LYP, and PBE0 perform rather well. In contrast, unsatisfactory performance is generally obtained with Minnesota functionals, which are therefore not recommended for calculations of magnetically induced current density susceptibilities and related magnetic properties such as magnetizabilities and nuclear magnetic shieldings. We also demonstrate that magnetizabilities can be calculated by numerical integration of magnetizability density; we have implemented this approach as a new feature in the gauge-including magnetically induced current (GIMIC) method. Magnetizabilities can be calculated from magnetically induced current density susceptibilities within this approach even when analytical approaches for magnetizabilities as the second derivative of the energy have not been implemented. The magnetizability density can also be visualized, providing additional information that is not otherwise easily accessible on the spatial origin of magnetizabilities.

Closed-shell paramagnetic porphyrinoids

Magnetizabilities and magnetically induced ring-current strength susceptibilities have been calculated at the Hartree–Fock, density functional theory and second order Møller–Plesset levels for a number of antiaromatic closed-shell carbaporphyrins, carbathiaporphyrins and isophlorins.

Gauge-invariant expectation values of the energy of a molecule in an electromagnetic field

In this paper, we show that the full Hamiltonian for a molecule in an electromagnetic field can be separated into a molecular Hamiltonian and a field Hamiltonian, both with gauge-invariant expectation values. The expectation value of the molecular Hamiltonian gives physically meaningful results for the energy of a molecule in a time-dependent applied field. In contrast, the usual partitioning of the full Hamiltonian into molecular and field terms introduces an arbitrary gauge-dependent potential into the molecular Hamiltonian and leaves a gauge-dependent form of the Hamiltonian for the field. With the usual partitioning of the Hamiltonian, this same problem of gauge dependence arises even in the absence of an applied field, as we show explicitly by considering a gauge transformation from zero applied field and zero external potentials to zero applied field, but non-zero external vector and scalar potentials. We resolve this problem and also remove the gauge dependence from the Hamiltonian for a molecule in a non-zero applied field and from the field Hamiltonian, by repartitioning the full Hamiltonian. It is possible to remove the gauge dependence because the interaction of the molecular charges with the gauge potential cancels identically with a gauge-dependent term in the usual form of the field Hamiltonian. We treat the electromagnetic field classically and treat the molecule quantum mechanically, but nonrelativistically. Our derivation starts from the Lagrangian for a set of charged particles and an electromagnetic field, with the particle coordinates, the vector potential, the scalar potential, and their time derivatives treated as the variables in the Lagrangian. We construct the full Hamiltonian using a Lagrange multiplier method originally suggested by Dirac, partition this Hamiltonian into a molecular term Hm and a field term Hf, and show that both Hm and Hf have gauge-independent expectation values. Any gauge may be chosen for the calculations; but following our partitioning, the expectation values of the molecular Hamiltonian are identical to those obtained directly in the Coulomb gauge. As a corollary of this result, the power absorbed by a molecule from a time-dependent, applied electromagnetic field is equal to the time derivative of the non-adiabatic term in the molecular energy, in any gauge.

Fully relativistic self-consistent field under a magnetic field

Four-component Dirac–Hartree–Fock method with gauge-including atomic orbitals.