The electronic states of buta-1,3-diene studied by ab initio configuration interaction and DFT methods, and electron energy loss spectroscopy

Abstract

The electronic vertical excitation energies for singlet and triplet valence, and Rydberg states of trans-buta-1,3-diene have been computed using ab initio multi-reference multi-root CI procedures with a [4s3p3d3f] set of Rydberg functions. Close numerical agreement between theory and experiment was found for a number of low-lying electronic states. The present CI and CASSCF [8MO,8e] calculations suggest that both the vertical and adiabatic order of the valence (ππ∗) states is: A ∼ 1 A g < B ∼ 1 B u . An electron energy-loss spectrum, reported here, in which the incident electrons have near-threshold energies, supports this order. Adiabatic excitation energies and structures were obtained for several singlet and triplet states using CASSCF and B3LYP procedures; the results from these methods are generally in good agreement with each other. The C 1C 2 to C 2C 3 bond length ratio in the excited states varies widely, and is discussed.