Disrotatory Pathway Research Articles

Converting second-order saddle points to transition states: New principles for the design of 4π photoswitches.

Molecular photoswitches have demonstrated potential for storing solar energy at the molecular level, with power densities comparable to commercial batteries and hydroelectric energy storage. However, development of efficient photoswitches is hindered by limitations in cyclability and optical properties of existing materials. We here demonstrate that certain limitations in photoswitches based on electrocyclizations stem from the issue of controlling competition between Woodward-Hoffmann allowed and forbidden pathways. Our approach moves beyond the traditional view of activation barriers and reveals that second-order saddle points are crucial in dictating the competition between disrotatory and conrotatory pathways. These insights suggest new opportunities to manipulate the competition between these pathways through geometric constraints, fundamentally altering the connectivity of the potential energy surface. Our study also emphasizes the necessity of multi-reference methods and the need to conduct higher-dimensional explorations for competing pathways beyond photoswitch design.

Origin of a Kinetically Selective Route for Thermoreversible Valence Tautomerism-Based Photoswitching in O-Heterocycles Containing Conjugated Dienes.

The thermal electrocyclic ring opening of fused cis-cyclobutene to cis,cis-diene is prohibited according to the Woodward-Hoffmann (WH) rules; nonetheless, experiments provide firm evidence for their formation. However, the mechanism, electronic structure, and behavior during the reaction are ambiguous. Herein, we attempt to gain insights into the mechanism of thermal ring opening in four O-heterocycles containing a conjugated diene as the core skeleton. The results emphasize that the reaction initiates with a conrotatory ring opening to produce a cis,trans-diene as a strained transient intermediate following the WH rules but ultimately leads to a forbidden product. The conversion of cis,trans-diene to cis,cis-diene is kinetically preferred through double-bond rotation, involving the formation of a singlet biradicaloid. The expected H-shift is unfavorable because the requirement of suprafacial H transfer incorporates additional strain, while the transfer of other available H is symmetry-forbidden. The increased electrophilicity at O promotes C-O dissociation in the 8-membered cyclic cis,trans-dienes with fused benzene. This enables thermoreversible photoswitching via a two-step mechanism and kinetically refutes the direct disrotatory pathway. These systems can outperform energy storage, and critical insight into their mechanism with the aid of comprehensive electronic structure analysis would assist in their rational design in the future.

Perturbing π-clouds with Substituents to Study the Effects on Reaction Dynamics of gauche-1,3-Butadiene to Bicyclobutane Electrocyclization.

The conical intersection (CI) governs the ultra-fast relaxation of excited states in a radiationless manner and are observed mainly in photochemical processes. In the current work, we investigated the effects of substituents on the reaction dynamics for the conversion of gauche-1,3-butadiene to bicyclobutane via photochemical electrocyclization. We incorporated both electron withdrawing (-F) and donating (-CH3 ) groups in the conjugated system. In our study, we optimized the minimum energy conical intersection (MECI) geometries using the multi-configurational state-averaged CASSCF approach, whereas, to study the ground state reaction pathways for the substituted derivatives, dispersion corrected, B3LYP-D3 functional was used. The non-adiabatic surface hopping molecular dynamics simulations were performed to observe the behaviour of electronic states involved throughout the photoconversion process. The results obtained from the multi-reference second-order perturbation correction of energy at the XMS-CASPT2 level of theory, topography analysis, and non-adiabatic dynamics suggest that the -CH3 substituted derivatives can undergo faster thermal conversion to the product in the ground state with a smaller activation energy barrier compared to -F substituted derivative. Our study also reveals that the GBUT to BIBUT conversion follows both conrotatory and disrotatory pathways, whereas, on substitution with -F or -CH3 , the conversion proceeds via the conrotatory pathway.

Pulling Outward but Reacting Inward: Mechanically Induced Symmetry-Allowed Reactions of cis- and trans-Diester-Substituted Dichlorocyclopropanes

AbstractThe mechanically induced symmetry-allowed disrotatory ring openings of cis- and trans-gem-dichlorocyclopropane (gDCC) diesters are demonstrated through sonication and single-molecule force spectroscopy (SMFS) studies. In contrast to the previously reported symmetry-forbidden conrotatory ring opening of alkyl-tethered trans-gDCC, we show that the diester-tethered trans-gDCC primarily undergoes a symmetry-allowed disrotatory pathway even at the high forces (>2 nN) and short-time scales (ms or less) of sonication and SMFS experiments. The quantitative force-rate data obtained from SMFS data is consistent with computational models of transition-state geometry for the symmetry-allowed process, and activation lengths of 1.41 ± 0.02 Å and 1.08 ± 0.03 Å are inferred for the cis-gDCC diester and trans-gDCC diester, respectively. The strong mechanochemical coupling in the trans-gDCC is notable, given that the directionality of the applied force may appear initially to oppose the disrotatory motion associated with the reaction. The stereochemical perturbations of mechanical coupling created by the ester attachments reinforce the complexity that is possible in covalent polymer mechanochemistry and illustrate the breadth of reactivity outcomes that are available through judicious mechanophore design.

Computational and Experimental Evidence of Two Competing Thermal Electrocyclization Pathways for Vinylheptafulvene.

The thermal electrocyclic ring-closure reaction of vinylheptafulvene (VHF) to form dihydroazulene (DHA) is elucidated herein by using DFT and 1 H NMR spectroscopy. Two different transition states were found computationally; one corresponds to a disrotatory pathway, which is allowed according to the Woodward-Hoffmann selection rules, whereas the other corresponds to a conrotatory pathway. The conrotatory pathway is found to be zwitterionic in the transition state, whereas the disrotatory transition state varies in zwitterionic character depending on solvent and substituents in the molecular framework. The conrotatory and disrotatory transition states are found to have similar energy and their relative stability varies with solvent polarity and functionalization at the C1 position. To support these findings, we chemically ring-opened diastereomerically pure 1-(benzothiazol-2-yl)-DHA to give the VHF form, then subsequently thermally reconverted the VHF to DHA in a range of solvents with various polarities. We found that, depending on solvent polarity, different ratios of anti- and syn-diastereoisomers of DHA were formed in a systematic manner, which supports the existence of two distinct thermal ring-closure pathways for VHF.

MRMP2, CCSD(T), and DFT Calculations of the Isomerization Barriers for the Disrotatory and Conrotatory Isomerizations of 3-Aza-3-ium-dihydrobenzvalene, 3,4-Diaza-3-ium-dihydrobenzvalene, and 3,4-Diaza-diium-dihydrobenzvalene.

The isomerizations of 3-aza-3-ium-dihydrobenzvalene, 3,4-diaza-3-ium-dihydrobenzvalene, and 3,4-diaza-diium-dihydrobenzvalene to their respective cyclic-diene products were studied using electronic structure methods with a multiconfigurational wave function and several single reference methods. Transition states for both the allowed (conrotatory) and forbidden (disrotatory) pathways were located. The conrotatory pathways of each structure all proceed through a cyclic intermediate with a trans double bond in the ring: this trans double bond destroys the aromatic stabilization of the π electrons due to poor orbital overlap between the cis and trans π bonds. The 3,4-diaza-3-ium-dihydrobenzvalene structure has C1 symmetry, and there are four separate allowed and forbidden pathways for this structure. The 3-aza-3-ium-dihydrobenzvalene structure is Cs symmetric, and there are two separate allowed and forbidden pathways for this structure. For 3,4-diaza-3,4-diium-dihydrobenzvalene, there was a single allowed and single forbidden pathway due to the C2v symmetry. The separation of the barrier heights for all three molecules was studied, and we found the difference in activation barriers for the lowest allowed and lowest forbidden pathways in 3,4-diaza-3-ium-dihydrobenzvalene, 3-aza-3-ium-dihydrobenzvalene, and 3,4-diaza-diium-dihydrobenzvalene to be 9.1, 7.4, and 3.7 kcal/mol, respectively. The allowed and forbidden barriers of 3,4-diaza-diium-dihydrobenzvalene were separated by 3.7 kcal/mol, which is considerably less than the 12-15 kcal/mol expected based on the orbital symmetry rules. The addition of the secondary ammonium group tends to shift the conrotatory and disrotatory barriers up in energy (∼12-14 kcal/mol (conrotatory) and 5-10 kcal/mol (disrotatory) per secondary NH2 group) relative to the barriers of dihydrobenzvalene, but there is negligible effect on E,Z to Z,Z isomerization barriers, which remain in the expected range of greater than 4 kcal/mol.

Ring opening of 2-aza-3-borabicyclo[2.2.0]hex-5-ene, the Dewar form of 1,2-dihydro-1,2-azaborine: stepwise versus concerted mechanisms

The ring opening of the Dewar form of 1,2-dihydro-1,2-azaborine, 2-aza-3-borabicyclo[2.2.0]hex-5-ene (3) is investigated by theoretical methods by using multiconfiguration SCF (CASSCF) and coupled cluster theory [CCSD(T)] with basis sets up to polarised quadruple-zeta quality. The title compound was previously reported to form photochemically in cryogenic noble gas matrices from 1,2-dihydro-1,2-azaborine (4). Four reaction paths for the thermal ring opening of 3 to 4 could be identified. These are the conventional disrotatory and conrotatory electrocyclic ring-opening pathways where the BN unit is only a bystander. Two more favourable paths are stepwise and involve 1,3-boron–carbon interactions. The lowest energy barrier for the isomerisation reaction, 22 kcal mol−1, should be high enough for an experimental observation in solution. However, in solution the dimerisation of 3 is computed to have a very low barrier (3 kcal mol−1), and thus 3 is expected to be a short-lived reactive intermediate.

Isomerization barriers for the disrotatory and conrotatory isomerizations of 3-aza-benzvalene and 3,4-diaza-benzvalene to pyridine and pyridazine

The isomerizations of 3-aza-benzvalene to pyridine and 3,4-diaza-benzvalene to pyridazine have been studied using ab initio methods with a multiconfigurational wavefunction. Transition states for both the allowed disrotatory and forbidden conrotatory pathways were located. The forbidden pathways proceed through an intermediate consisting of pyridine or pyridazine with a trans double bond in the ring: this trans double bond destroys the aromatic stabilization of the π electrons due to poor orbital overlap between the cis and trans π bonds. Due to the Cs molecular point group, there are two separate allowed and forbidden pathways for 3-aza-benzvalene. The separation of the barrier heights was of particular interest: the difference in activation barriers for the lowest allowed and lowest forbidden pathways in 3-aza-benzvalene was only 1.3 kcal mol(-1), and the lowest forbidden pathway actually had a 1.5 kcal mol(-1) lower barrier than the highest allowed one. The 3-aza-benzvalene structure allows energy crossing of the allowed and forbidden barriers. For 3,4-diaza-benzvalene, there was only a single allowed and single forbidden pathway, due to the C2v point group, and they were separated by 8.4 kcal mol(-1), more in line with the orbital symmetry rules.

Incorporating a completely renormalized coupled cluster approach into a composite method for thermodynamic properties and reaction paths

The correlation consistent composite approach (ccCA), using the S4 complete basis set two-point extrapolation scheme (ccCA-S4), has been modified to incorporate the left-eigenstate completely renormalized coupled cluster method, including singles, doubles, and non-iterative triples (CR-CC(2,3)) as the highest level component. The new ccCA-CC(2,3) method predicts thermodynamic properties with an accuracy that is similar to that of the original ccCA-S4 method. At the same time, the inclusion of the single-reference CR-CC(2,3) approach provides a ccCA scheme that can correctly treat reaction pathways that contain certain classes of multi-reference species such as diradicals, which would normally need to be treated by more computationally demanding multi-reference methods. The new ccCA-CC(2,3) method produces a mean absolute deviation of 1.7 kcal/mol for predicted heats of formation at 298 K, based on calibration with the G2/97 set of 148 molecules, which is comparable to that of 1.0 kcal/mol obtained using the ccCA-S4 method, while significantly improving the performance of the ccCA-S4 approach in calculations involving more demanding radical and diradical species. Both the ccCA-CC(2,3) and ccCA-S4 composite methods are used to characterize the conrotatory and disrotatory isomerization pathways of bicyclo[1.1.0]butane to trans-1,3-butadiene, for which conventional coupled cluster methods, such as the CCSD(T) approach used in the ccCA-S4 model and, in consequence, the ccCA-S4 method itself might fail by incorrectly placing the disrotatory pathway below the conrotatory one. The ccCA-CC(2,3) scheme provides correct pathway ordering while providing an accurate description of the activation and reaction energies characterizing the lowest-energy conrotatory pathway. The ccCA-CC(2,3) method is thus a viable method for the analyses of reaction mechanisms that have significant multi-reference character, and presents a generally less computationally intensive alternative to true multi-reference methods, with computer costs and ease of use that are similar to those that characterize the more established, CCSD(T)-based, ccCA-S4 methodology.

Strongly correlated mechanisms of a photoexcited radical reaction from the anti-Hermitian contracted Schrödinger equation

Photoexcited radical reactions are critical to processes in both nature and materials, and yet they can be challenging for electronic structure methods due to the presence of strong electron correlation. Reduced-density-matrix (RDM) methods, based on solving the anti-Hermitian contracted Schrödinger equation (ACSE) for the two-electron RDM (2-RDM), are examined for studying the strongly correlated mechanisms of these reactions with application to the electrocyclic interconversion of allyl and cyclopropyl radicals. We combine recent extensions of the ACSE to excited states [G. Gidofalvi and D. A. Mazziotti, Phys. Rev. A 80, 022507 (2009)] and arbitrary spin states [A. E. Rothman, J. J. Foley IV, and D. A. Mazziotti, Phys. Rev. A 80, 052508 (2009)]. The ACSE predicts that the ground-state ring closure of the allyl radical has a high 52.5 kcal/mol activation energy that is consistent with experimental data, while the closure of an excited allyl radical can occur by disrotatory and conrotatory pathways whose transition states are essentially barrierless. Comparisons are made with multireference second- and third-order perturbation theories and multireference configuration interaction. While predicted energy differences do not vary greatly between methods, the ACSE appears to improve these differences when they involve a strongly and a weakly correlated radical by capturing a greater share of single-reference correlation that increases the stability of the weakly correlated radicals. For example, the ACSE predicts a -39.6 kcal/mol conversion of the excited allyl radical to the ground-state cyclopropyl radical in comparison to the -32.6 to -37.3 kcal/mol conversions predicted by multireference methods. In addition, the ACSE reduces the computational scaling with the number of strongly correlated orbitals from exponential (traditional multireference methods) to quadratic. Computed ground- and excited-state 2-RDMs are nearly N-representable.

Ab Initio Study of the Pathways and Barriers of Tricyclo[4.1.0.02, 7]heptene Isomerization

The thermal isomerization of tricyclo[4.1.0.0(2,7)]heptene has been studied using computational chemistry with structures determined at the MCSCF level and energies at the MRMP2 level. Both the allowed conrotatory and forbidden disrotatory pathways have been elucidated resulting in cycloheptatriene isomers. Four reaction channels are available for the conrotatory pathway depending on which bond breaks first in the bicyclobutane moiety leading to enantiomeric pairs of (E,Z,Z)-1,3,5-cycloheptatriene and (Z,E,Z)-1,3,5-cycloheptatriene intermediates. The activation barrier is calculated to be 31.3 kcal·mol⁻¹ for two channels and 37.5 kcal·mol⁻¹ for the other two. The lower activation barrier leading to the (E,Z,Z)-1,3,5-cycloheptatriene enantiomeric pair is proposed to be due to resonance within the transition state. The same behavior was observed for the disrotatory pathway with activation barriers of 42.0 kcal·mol⁻¹ and 55.1 kcal·mol⁻¹ for the two channels, again with one transition state resonance stabilized. The barriers for trans double bond rotation of the intermediate cycloheptatrienes are determined to be 17.1 and 17.4 kcal·mol⁻¹, about 5 kcal·mol⁻¹ more than that for the seven carbon diene (E,Z)-1,3-cycloheptadiene. The electrocyclic ring closure of the trans cycloheptatrienes have been modeled and barriers determined to be 11.1 and 11.9 kcal·mol⁻¹ for the formation of bicyclo[3.2.0]hepta-2,6-diene. This structure was previously reported as the end product for thermolysis of the parent tricyclo[4.1.0.0(2,7)]heptene. The thermodynamically more stable cycloheptatriene can be formed from bicyclo[3.2.0]hepta-2,6-diene through a two step process with a calculated pseudo first-order barrier of 36.4 kcal·mol⁻¹. The trans-cycloheptatrienes reported herein are the first characterization of a small seven-membered ring triene with a trans double bond.

Mechanism of Electrocyclic Ring-Opening of Diphenyloxirane: 40 Years after Woodward and Hoffmann

The photochemistry of diphenyloxirane has been investigated by using static density functional theory and first-principles molecular dynamics. We optimised potential-energy surfaces for both the disrotatory and the conrotatory pathway in the first excited state. Although the disrotatory pathway does not seem to be favoured energetically, we get only the disrotatory product during the molecular dynamics simulations. This can be attributed to the "on-the-fly" description of the electronic structure in a first-principles molecular dynamics simulation. The different photochemical behaviour of aryl oxiranes and unsubstituted oxirane is due to different shapes of the frontier orbitals.

A Preferred Disrotatory 4n Electron Möbius Aromatic Transition State for a Thermal Electrocyclic Reaction

Not forbidden: Thermal 4n electron electrocyclic reactions of Hückel topology structures proceed via "allowed" conrotatory pathways. However, for a Möbius topology, the Woodward-Hoffmann rules may be reversed and a "forbidden" disrotatory pathway can be preferred as shown theoretically for dodecahexaene 1 that transforms via a Heilbronner-Möbius aromatic transition structure 2 into a cyclic polyene 3.

Photochemical deactivation pathways of the Ã-state allyl radical

Ab initio direct molecular dynamics with trajectory surface hopping methods simulates the photochemical deactivation pathways of the allyl radical, C(3)H(5), following electronic excitation to the A-state. The electronically nonadiabatic dynamics mediated by two conical intersections produces predominantly hot ground state allyl radicals along both the disrotatory and conrotatory photochemical deactivation pathways with a near synchronous rotation of the terminal methylene groups. The electrocyclic transformation of the allyl radical to the cyclopropyl radical is a minor channel accounting for 8% of all trajectories with 98% of them following the disrotatory pathway.

Bicycle-Pedal Isomerization in a Rhodopsin Chromophore Model

Probing the isomerization of a retinal chromophore model we have found the first ab initio realization of the so-called "bicycle-pedal mechanism". In an ensemble of 47 starting geometries generated by ground-state zero-point-energy sampling one single trajectory followed the aforementioned reaction mode which was proposed by Warshel in 1976. Furthermore restrained optimization of synchronous rotation mode shows that two-double-bond isomerization is barrierless for the conrotatory and disrotatory pathway.

Energy Barriers in the Conversion of Bicyclobutane to gauche-1,3-Butadiene from the Anti-Hermitian Contracted Schrödinger Equation

In 1959 Charles Coulson popularized the idea of computing a molecule's ground-state energy as a functional of the two-electron reduced density matrix (2-RDM) without the many-electron wave function. For 50 years, however, a practical, direct calculation of the 2-RDM was not achieved because the 2-RDM must be constrained by N-representability conditions to represent an N-electron system. Recently, two general approaches to the direct calculation of the 2-RDM have emerged including the solution of the anti-Hermitian contracted Schrodinger equation (ACSE) [Mazziotti, Phys. Rev. Lett., 2006, 97, 143002]. In this article, after further extending the theoretical development of the ACSE method for multireference correlation, we apply the ACSE to studying an unresolved question regarding the opening of bicyclobutane to gauche-1,3-butadiene by conrotatory and disrotatory pathways. Previous theoretical values for the disrotatory energy barrier reveal a disagreement between correlation methods on the order of 10 kcal/mol. By capturing significantly more correlation energy than traditional multireference methods, the ACSE provides new insight into this discrepancy. The ACSE energy for the conrotatory energy barrier agrees with the 40.6 +/- 2.5 kcal/mol experimental value.

Extrapolating potential energy surfaces by scaling electron correlation: Isomerization of bicyclobutane to butadiene

The recently proposed potential energy surface (PES) extrapolation scheme, which predicts smooth molecular PESs corresponding to larger basis sets from the relatively inexpensive calculations using smaller basis sets by scaling electron correlation energies [A. J. C. Varandas and P. Piecuch, Chem. Phys. Lett. 430, 448 (2006)], is applied to the PESs associated with the conrotatory and disrotatory isomerization pathways of bicyclo[1.1.0]butane to buta-1,3-diene. The relevant electronic structure calculations are performed using the completely renormalized coupled-cluster method with singly and doubly excited clusters and a noniterative treatment of connected triply excited clusters, termed CR-CC(2,3), which is known to provide a highly accurate description of chemical reaction profiles involving biradical transition states and intermediates. A comparison with the explicit CR-CC(2,3) calculations using the large correlation-consistent basis set of the cc-pVQZ quality shows that the cc-pVQZ PESs obtained by the extrapolation from the smaller basis set calculations employing the cc-pVDZ and cc-pVTZ basis sets are practically identical, to within fractions of a millihartree, to the true cc-pVQZ PESs. It is also demonstrated that one can use a similar extrapolation procedure to accurately predict the complete basis set (CBS) limits of the calculated PESs from the results of smaller basis set calculations at a fraction of the effort required by the conventional pointwise CBS extrapolations.

Electrocyclic Ring Opening of cis‐Bicyclo[m.n.0]alkenes: The Anti‐Woodward–Hoffmann Quest

The dubbed anti-Woodward-Hoffmann ring-opening reaction of cis-bicyclo[4.2.0]oct-7-ene to yield cis,cis-cycloocta-1,3-diene has been intensively studied with robust, high-level computational methods. This reaction has been found to proceed through a conrotatory allowed pathway to afford cis,trans-cycloocta-1,3-diene followed by E to Z isomerization, instead of a disrotatory forbidden pathway, as suggested. Computational calculations of kinetic isotope effects are consistent with this interpretation and the experimental values. The study of lower bicyclic homologues with [3.2.0], [2.2.0] and [2.1.0] skeletons indicates the feasibility of a mechanistic change towards the anti-Woodward-Hoffmann disrotatory path. This is clearly favored for the ring opening of the highly strained cis-bicyclo[2.1.0]pent-2-ene and is highly competitive with the conrotatory path for cis-bicyclo[2.2.0]hex-2-ene. Therefore, the rearrangement of the smallest bicyclic cyclobutene is predicted computationally to be an anti-Woodward-Hoffmann disrotatory electrocyclic ring-opening reaction.

Conformation, dynamics, solvation and relative stabilities of selected β-hexopyranoses in water: a molecular dynamics study with the gromos 45A4 force field

The present article reports long timescale (200 ns) simulations of four β- d-hexopyranoses (β- d-glucose, β- d-mannose, β- d-galactose and β- d-talose) using explicit-solvent (water) molecular dynamics and vacuum stochastic dynamics simulations together with the gromos 45A4 force field. Free-energy and solvation free-energy differences between the four compounds are also calculated using thermodynamic integration. Along with previous experimental findings, the present results suggest that the formation of intramolecular hydrogen-bonds in water is an ‘opportunistic’ consequence of the close proximity of hydrogen-bonding groups, rather than a major conformational driving force promoting this proximity. In particular, the conformational preferences of the hydroxymethyl group in aqueous environment appear to be dominated by 1,3- syn-diaxial repulsion, with gauche and solvation effects being secondary, and intramolecular hydrogen-bonding essentially negligible. The rotational dynamics of the exocyclic hydroxyl groups, which cannot be probed experimentally, is found to be rapid (10–100 ps timescale) and correlated (flip-flop hydrogen-bonds interconverting preferentially through an asynchronous disrotatory pathway). Structured solvent environments are observed between the ring and lactol oxygen atoms, as well as between the 4-OH and hydroxymethyl groups. The calculated stability differences between the four compounds are dominated by intramolecular effects, while the corresponding differences in solvation free energies are small. An inversion of the stereochemistry at either C 2 or C 4 from equatorial to axial is associated with a raise in free energy. Finally, the particularly low hydrophilicity of β- d-talose appears to be caused by the formation of a high-occurrence hydrogen-bonded bridge between the 1,3- syn-diaxial 2-OH and 4-OH groups. Overall, good agreement is found with available experimental and theoretical data on the structural, dynamical, solvation and energetic properties of these compounds. However, this detailed comparison also reveals some discrepancies, suggesting the need (and providing a solid basis) for further refinement.

Computational Investigation of the Conrotatory and Disrotatory Isomerization Channels of Bicyclo[1.1.0]butane to Buta-1,3-diene: A Completely Renormalized Coupled-Cluster Study

The conrotatory and disrotatory mechanisms of the isomerization of bicyclo[1.1.0]butane to trans-buta-1,3-diene have been computationally investigated with the CASSCF, MCQDPT2, (U)B3LYP, CCSD(T), CR-CCSD(T), and CR-CC(2,3) approaches. The coupled-cluster (CC) methods, including the CC approach with singles, doubles, and noniterative triples (CCSD(T)), and its completely renormalized (CR) extensions called CR-CCSD(T) and CR-CC(2,3), and the density functional theory B3LYP approach do an excellent job of correctly predicting the activation barrier for the conrotatory pathway, which corresponds to a weakly biradical transition state (TS), producing values within experimental error bars. In particular, the recently developed CR-CC(2,3) method gives 40.8 or 41.1 kcal/mol, in perfect agreement with the experimental value of 40.6 +/- 2.5 kcal/mol. The complete-active-space self-consistent-field (CASSCF) approach and the second-order multireference perturbation theory (MCQDPT2) are less accurate in describing the conrotatory barrier than CR-CC(2,3). The higher energy disrotatory pathway, which has not been characterized experimentally and which involves a strongly biradical TS, poses a great challenge for many methods. CCSD(T) fails, predicting the activation barrier for the disrotatory pathway significantly below the conrotatory barrier, contradicting the experimental result that the conrotatory pathway describes the mechanism. The strongly biradical character of the disrotatory TS, spin contamination, and the proximity of singlet and triplet potential energy surfaces cause difficulties for B3LYP, which does not link this TS with gauche-buta-1,3-diene. No such difficulties occur in the CASSCF calculations, which offer a proper description of the structure of the disrotatory TS that links it with the reactant and product molecules. The CR-CC(2,3) approach, which accurately balances dynamical and nondynamical correlations in systems containing closed-shell and biradical structures, predicts the activation enthalpy for the disrotatory mechanism of approximately 66 kcal/mol. CR-CCSD(T) gives approximately 69 kcal/mol. In agreement with experiment and earlier multireference configuration interaction calculations of Nguyen and Gordon, CR-CCSD(T) and CR-CC(2,3) favor the conrotatory mechanism. The CASSCF, MCQDPT2, and B3LYP methods correctly place the disrotatory barrier above the conrotatory one, but, on the basis of a comparison with the accurate CR-CC(2,3) results, they underestimate the activation energy for the disrotatory pathway. All CC approaches employed in this study produce very good estimates of the enthalpy of isomerization of bicyclo[1.1.0]butane into buta-1,3-diene, the experimental value of which is -25.9 +/- 0.4 kcal/mol, giving about -28 kcal/mol, when trans-buta-1,3-diene is used as a product, and -25 kcal/mol, when the nearly isoenergetic gauche-buta-1,3-diene rotamer is used as a product. The CC reaction enthalpies are more accurate than those obtained with CASSCF, MCQDPT2, and B3LYP.