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Absorption

This section currently focus on the calculation of absorption spectra, with vibrational effects to be added.

We here consider the UV/vis spectrum of gaseous water, with molecular structure:

TDDFT

Calculating the first six eigenstates using TDDFT:

There are currently no built-in functionalities for obtaining the broadened spectra, so we instead construct this from the eigenvalues and oscillator strengths, as well as printing a table with energies (here in atomic units), oscillator strengths, and transition dipole moments:

CPP-DFT

Using CPP-DFT, the linear absorption cross-section is resolved over a range of energies, which is here chosen as the 7-17 eV (with a resolution of 0.1 eV):

Plotting the raw output, the raw output with a splined function, and a comparison to the eigenstate results above (here plotted as bars):

ADC

The first six excited states of water is calculated as:

The resuls can be printed as a table, and convoluted and plotted using built-in functionalities (which can use several different energy-axis, as shown below).

Fix: broaden spectra expressed in wavelength.

Note that some high-energy features can be the result of a discretized continuum region. A larger basis set will flatten out this region, but care should be taken for any analysis of that part of the spectrum.

CPP-ADC

To be added.

MCSCF

In some cases, it can be preferable to use a multiconfigurational wavefunction to compute excitation energies. This is necessary if, for instance, the molecule is suspected to have strong correlation effects, or if the user is interested in analyzing a conical intersection --- something that ADC and TDDFT often fail to properly describe.

In principle, a MCSCF spectrum can be computed using response theory similarly to ADC and DFT. However, as configuration interaction (CI) can naturally provide not just the lowest but any state, it is possible to produce excited states by simply increasing the number of requested states or “roots” in the CI. However, in traditional MCSCF, the orbitals cannot be simultaneously optimized for each state, and instead we use a set of orbitals that is a compromise between all states: the state-averaged orbitals.

For water in its equilibrium distance, there is no strong correlation, and thus the only orbitals we need to include in the active space are those that can be excited in the UV-visible spectrum. Here, we will use a CASSCF with an active space comprising the molecular orbitals formed by the oxygen 2p and hydrogen 1s, corresponding to the two σ\sigma and σ∗\sigma^* and one oxygen lone pair. We could in principle include the other lone pair, formed mostly by the 2s orbital of the oxygen, but its orbital energy is much lower and the orbital is thus not involved in the lowest UV-visible transitions.

The orbitals are conveniently located around the HOMO-LUMO gap, so it is sufficient to request a CAS(6,5) (6 electrons in 5 orbitals) to get the desired active space. First, we calculate the SCF ground state:

Then we resolve the six lowest excited states:

Output

The resulting states are printed above, or can be printed or plotted:

Comparing to ADC(3) we see a good agreement in relative features, but the absolute energies and intensities are a bit different:

Comparison of spectra

The spectra from the four different approaches can be plotted as:

Plotted either on top of each other, or with a vertical set-off. We note that the features are, in general, similar, with differences mainly taking the form of absolute energy shifts, as well as noticeably more intense features for SA-MCSCF.