A new implementation of ab initio ehrenfest dynamics using electronic configuration basis: Exact formulation with molecular orbital connection and effective propagation scheme with locally quasi‐diabatic representation

Abstract

We propose a new implementation of Ehrenfest molecular dynamics based on the configuration interaction theory using configuration state functions (CSF) as basis set originally proposed by Amano and Takatsuka (J. Chem. Phys. 2005, 122, 084113). Our development consists of two independet new features. The first one deals with the problem on how to “identify” the molecular orbitals at a simulation time step in terms of those at the previous time step. By giving an exact expression of CSF Ehrenfest method, this problem naturaly vanishes. To actually perform this method, the concept of molecular orbital connection which allows the MOs to be noncanonical is necessary. The second feature of our method is aimed to reduce the computational cost. We propose an approximaion to effectively perform the time propagation of the electron wavefunction. Due to the analogy to the locally diabatic representation method, we name our method locally quasi‐diabatic representation method. In the present work, these two new features were combined and employed to perform test computations. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.