Probing chirality across the electromagnetic spectrum with the full semi-classical light–matter interaction

Transition moments beyond the electric-dipole approximation: Visualization and basis set requirements

In the simulation of x-ray absorption spectroscopy, the validity of the electric-dipole approximation comes into question. Three different schemes exist to go beyond this approximation: the first scheme is based on the full semi-classical light-matter interaction, whereas the latter two schemes, referred to as the generalized length and velocity representation, are based on truncated multipole expansions. Even though these schemes have been successfully implemented in several quantum chemistry codes, their basis set requirements remained largely unknown. Here, we assess basis set requirements of these three schemes. We have considered 1s1/2 and 7s1/2 → 7p1/2 transitions in the radium atom, representative of core and valence excitations, respectively, and carried out calculations with dyall.aeXz (X = 2, 3, 4) basis sets at the four-component relativistic TD-HF level of theory. Our basis set study was greatly facilitated by the generation and visualization of radial distributions of transition moment densities, allowing for a straightforward comparison with equivalent finite-difference calculations. Pertaining to the truncated interaction, we find that the length representation electric multipole is the easiest to converge, requiring the dyall.ae2z basis for low-order multipoles and the dyall.ae4z basis at higher orders. The magnetic multipole moments follow a similar trend although they are more difficult to converge. The velocity representation electric multipoles are the most difficult to converge: at high orders, the dyall.ae3z and dyall.ae4z basis sets introduce artificial peaks and oscillations, which increase the overall error. These artifacts are associated with linear dependence issues in the small component space of larger basis sets. The full interaction operator, however, does not suffer from these problems, and we therefore recommend its use in the simulation of x-ray spectroscopy.

Going beyond the Electric-Dipole Approximation in the Calculation of Absorption and (Magnetic) Circular Dichroism Spectra including Scalar Relativistic and Spin-Orbit Coupling Effects

In this work, a time-dependent density functional theory (TD-DFT) scheme for computing optical spectroscopic properties in the framework of linearly and circularly polarized light is presented. The scheme is based on a previously formulated theory for predicting optical absorption and magnetic circular dichroism (MCD) spectra. The scheme operates in the framework of the full semi-classical field-matter interaction operator, thus generating a powerful and general computational scheme capable of computing the absorption (ABS), circular dichroism (CD), and MCD spectra. In addition, our implementation includes the treatment of relativistic effects in the framework of quasidegenerate perturbation theory, which accounts for scalar relativistic effects (in the self-consistent field step) and spin-orbit coupling (in the TD-DFT step), as well as external magnetic field perturbations. Hence, this formalism is also able to probe spin-forbidden transitions. The random orientations of molecules are taken into account by a semi-numerical approach involving a Lebedev numerical quadrature alongside analytical integration. It is demonstrated the numerical quadrature requires as few as 14 points for satisfactory converged results thus leading to a highly efficient scheme, while the calculation of the exact transition moments creates no computational bottlenecks. It is demonstrated that at zero magnetic field, the CD spectrum is recovered while the sum of left and right circularly polarized light contributions provides the linear absorption spectrum. The virtues of this efficient and general protocol are demonstrated on a selected set of organic molecules where the various contributions to the spectral intensities have been analyzed in detail.