Ring Polymer Molecular Dynamics Rate Coefficients Research Articles

Rate coefficients for the O + H2 and O + D2 reactions: how well ring polymer molecular dynamics accounts for tunelling.

We present here extensive calculations of the O(3P) + H2 and O(3P) + D2 reaction dynamics spanning the temperature range from 200 K to 2500 K. The calculations have been carried out using fully converged time-independent quantum mechanics (TI QM), quasiclassical trajectories (QCT) and ring polymer molecular dynamics (RPMD) on the two lowest lying adiabatic potential energy surfaces (PESs), 13A' and 13A'', calculated by Zanchet et al. [J. Chem. Phys., 2019, 151, 094307]. TI QM rate coefficients were determined using the cumulative reaction probability formalism on each PES including all of the total angular momenta and the Coriolis coupling and can be considered to be essentially exact within the Born-Oppenheimer approximation. The agreement between the rate coefficients calculated by using QM and RPMD is excellent for the reaction with D2 in almost the whole temperature range. For the reaction with H2, although the agreement is very good above 500 K, the deviations are significant at lower temperatures. In contrast, the QCT calculations largely underestimate the rate coefficients for the two isotopic variants due to their inability to account for tunelling. The differences found in the disagreements between RPMD and QM rate coefficients for the reactions for both the isotopologues are indicative of the ability of the RPMD method to accurately describe systems where tunelling plays a relevant role. Considering that both reactions are dominated by tunelling below 500 K, the present results show that RPMD is a very powerful tool for determining rate coefficients. The present QM rate coefficients calculated on adiabatic PESs slightly underestimate the best global fits of the experimental measurements, which we attribute to the intersystem crossing with the singlet 11A' PES.

Ring polymer molecular dynamics and active learning of moment tensor potential for gas-phase barrierless reactions: Application to S + H2.

Ring polymer molecular dynamics (RPMD) has proven to be an accurate approach for calculating thermal rate coefficients of various chemical reactions. For wider application of this methodology, efficient ways to generate the underlying full-dimensional potential energy surfaces (PESs) and the corresponding energy gradients are required. Recently, we have proposed a fully automated procedure based on combining the original RPMDrate code with active learning for PES on-the-fly using moment tensor potential and successfully applied it to two representative thermally activated chemical reactions [I. S. Novikov et al., Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 20, 29503-29512 (2018)]. In this work, using a prototype insertion chemical reaction S + H2, we show that this procedure works equally well for another class of chemical reactions. We find that the corresponding PES can be generated by fitting to less than 1500 automatically generated structures, while the RPMD rate coefficients show deviation from the reference values within the typical convergence error of the RPMDrate. We note that more structures are accumulated during the real-time propagation of the dynamic factor (the recrossing factor) as opposed to the previous study. We also observe that a relatively flat free energy profile along the reaction coordinate before entering the complex-formation well can cause issues with locating the maximum of the free energy surface for less converged PESs. However, the final RPMD rate coefficient is independent of the position of the dividing surface that makes it invulnerable to this problem, keeping the total number of necessary structures within a few thousand. Our work concludes that, in the future, the proposed methodology can be applied to realistic complex chemical reactions with various energy profiles.

New Stress Test for Ring Polymer Molecular Dynamics: Rate Coefficients of the O(3P) + HCl Reaction and Comparison with Quantum Mechanical and Quasiclassical Trajectory Results.

In the past decade, ring polymer molecular dynamics (RPMD) has emerged as a very efficient method to determine thermal rate coefficients for a great variety of chemical reactions. This work presents the application of this methodology to study the O(3P) + HCl reaction, which constitutes a stringent test for any dynamical calculation due to rich resonant structure and other dynamical features. The rate coefficients, calculated on the 3A' and 3A″ potential energy surfaces (PESs) by Ramachandran and Peterson [ J. Chem. Phys. 2003 , 119 , 9590 ], using RPMD and quasiclassical trajectories (QCT) are compared with the existing experimental and the quantum mechanical (QM) results by Xie et al. [ J. Chem. Phys. 2005 122 , 014301 ]. The agreement is very good at T > 600 K, although RPMD underestimates rate coefficients by a factor between 4 and 2 in the 200-500 K interval. The origin of these discrepancies lies in the large contribution from tunneling on the 3A″ PES, which is enhanced by resonances due to quasibound states in the van der Waals wells. Although tunneling is fairly well accounted for by RPMD even below the crossover temperature, the effect of resonances, a long-time effect, is not included in the methodology. At the highest temperatures studied in this work, 2000-3300 K, the RPMD rate coefficients are somewhat larger than the QM ones, but this is shown to be due to limitations in the QM calculations and the RPMD are believed to be more reliable.

Ring-polymer molecular dynamics studies of thermal rate coefficients for reaction F + H2O → HF + OH

The prototype tetra-atomic reaction F + H2O → HF + OH plays a significant role in both atmospheric and astronomical chemistry. In this work, thermal rate coefficients of this reaction are determined with the ring polymer molecular dynamics (RPMD) method on a full-dimensional potential energy surface (PES). This PES is the most accurate one for the title reaction, as demonstrated by the correct barrier height and reaction energy, compared to the benchmark calculations by the focal point analysis and the high accuracy extrapolated ab initio thermochemistry methods. The RPMD rate coefficients are in excellent agreement with those calculated by the semiclassical transition state theory and a two-dimensional master equation technique, and some experimental measurements. As has been found in many RPMD applications, quantum effects, including tunneling and zero-point energy effects, can be efficiently and effectively captured by the RPMD method. In addition, the convergence of the results with respect to the number of beads is rapid, which is also consistent with previous RPMD applications.

Theoretical Investigations of Rate Coefficients of H + H2O2 → OH + H2O on a Full-Dimensional Potential Energy Surface.

The thermal rate coefficients of H + H2O2 → OH + H2O were obtained theoretically based on a recent fundamental invariant-neural network potential energy surface. The ring polymer molecular dynamics (RPMD) calculations were performed to get the rate coefficients with quantum effects, which are in good accord with some experimental values. The rate coefficients derived from extensive quasi-classical trajectory and canonical variational transition-state calculations also predict well the experimental results at high temperatures. The RPMD rate coefficients for H + H2O2 → OH + H2O are larger than H + H2O2 → H2 + HO2, but at very low temperatures below the room temperature, the H2 + HO2 channel becomes dominant due to significant quantum tunneling effects in the H atom transfer process. Considering that the old experimental values vary widely from different groups, we expect that our theoretical investigations can motivate new experimental work, which facilitates a more reliable comparison between theory and experiment.

Ring-polymer molecular dynamics study on rate coefficient of the barrierless OH + CO system at low temperature.

Based on the recently constructed neural-network potential energy surface [Chen et al., J. Chem. Phys. 138, 221104 (2013)], ring-polymer molecular dynamics (RPMD) calculations are performed to compute rate coefficients of the barrierless OH + CO system at T ≤ 500 K. To recover the barrierless feature, a Lindemann-Hinshelwood-type mechanism and hence a reduced rate coefficient are used to approximate the overall rate coefficient. An agreement between RPMD and experimental rate coefficients can be found. These RPMD results reproduce correctly the temperature-independence of the overall rate coefficient. Finally, potential sources of errors in the present RPMD calculations are discussed.

Rate coefficients of the H + H2O2 → H2 + HO2 reaction on an accurate fundamental invariant-neural network potential energy surface.

The rate coefficients of the H + H2O2 → H2 + HO2 reaction are calculated using the ring polymer molecular dynamics (RPMD), quasi-classical trajectory (QCT), and canonical variational transition state theory (CVT) with small curvature tunneling (SCT) correction, in conjunction with the recently constructed fundamental invariant-neural network (FI-NN) potential energy surface (PES) [X. Lu et al., Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 20, 23095 (2018)]. In RPMD calculations, 32, 16, and 8 beads are used for computing the rate coefficients at 200 K ≤ T ≤ 400 K, 500 K ≤ T ≤ 700 K, and 700 K < T ≤ 1000 K, respectively. Given that the previous experimental rate coefficients vary widely, in particular, at low temperatures, the present RPMD rate coefficients agree well with most of the experimental results. In addition, comparing with some experimental values, the present QCT and CVT/SCT calculations on the FI-NN PES also predict accurate results at some temperatures. These results strongly support the accuracy of the present dynamics calculations as well as the full-dimensional FI-NN PES.

Accurate Determination of Tunneling-Affected Rate Coefficients: Theory Assessing Experiment.

The thermal rate coefficients of a prototypical bimolecular reaction are determined on an accurate ab initio potential energy surface (PES) using ring polymer molecular dynamics (RPMD). It is shown that quantum effects such as tunneling and zero-point energy (ZPE) are of critical importance for the HCl + OH reaction at low temperatures, while the heavier deuterium substitution renders tunneling less facile in the DCl + OH reaction. The calculated RPMD rate coefficients are in excellent agreement with experimental data for the HCl + OH reaction in the entire temperature range of 200-1000 K, confirming the accuracy of the PES. On the other hand, the RPMD rate coefficients for the DCl + OH reaction agree with some, but not all, experimental values. The self-consistency of the theoretical results thus allows a quality assessment of the experimental data.

Thermal Rate Coefficients for the Astrochemical Process C + CH+ → C2+ + H by Ring Polymer Molecular Dynamics.

Thermal rate coefficients for the astrochemical reaction C + CH+ → C2+ + H were computed in the temperature range 20-300 K by using novel rate theory based on ring polymer molecular dynamics (RPMD) on a recently published bond-order based potential energy surface and compared with previous Langevin capture model (LCM) and quasi-classical trajectory (QCT) calculations. Results show that there is a significant discrepancy between the RPMD rate coefficients and the previous theoretical results that can lead to overestimation of the rate coefficients for the title reaction by several orders of magnitude at very low temperatures. We argue that this can be attributed to a very challenging energy profile along the reaction coordinate for the title reaction, not taken into account in extenso by either the LCM or QCT approximation. In the absence of any rigorous quantum mechanical or experimental results, the computed RPMD rate coefficients represent state-of-the-art estimates to be included in astrochemical databases and kinetic networks.

Rate coefficients and kinetic isotope effects of the X + CH4 → CH3 + HX (X = H, D, Mu) reactions from ring polymer molecular dynamics

The thermal rate coefficients and kinetic isotope effects have been calculated using ring polymer molecular dynamics (RPMD) for the prototypical reactions between methane and several hydrogen isotopes (H, D, and Mu). The excellent agreement with the theoretical rate coefficients of the H + CH4 reaction obtained previously from a multi-configuration time-dependent Hartree calculation on the same potential energy surface provides strong evidence for the accuracy of the RPMD approach. These quantum mechanical rate coefficients are also in good agreement with the results obtained previously using the transition-state theory with semi-classical tunneling corrections for the H∕D + CH4 reactions. However, it is shown that the RPMD rate coefficients for the ultralight Mu reaction with CH4 are significantly smaller than the experimental data, presumably suggesting inaccuracies in the potential energy surface and∕or experimental errors. Significant discrepancies between the RPMD and transition-state theory results have also been found for this challenging system.

Bimolecular reaction rates from ring polymer molecular dynamics: Application to H + CH4→ H2 + CH3

In a recent paper, we have developed an efficient implementation of the ring polymer molecular dynamics (RPMD) method for calculating bimolecular chemical reaction rates in the gas phase, and illustrated it with applications to some benchmark atom-diatom reactions. In this paper, we show that the same methodology can readily be used to treat more complex polyatomic reactions in their full dimensionality, such as the hydrogen abstraction reaction from methane, H + CH(4) → H(2) + CH(3). The present calculations were carried out using a modified and recalibrated version of the Jordan-Gilbert potential energy surface. The thermal rate coefficients obtained between 200 and 2000 K are presented and compared with previous results for the same potential energy surface. Throughout the temperature range that is available for comparison, the RPMD approximation gives better agreement with accurate quantum mechanical (multiconfigurational time-dependent Hartree) calculations than do either the centroid density version of quantum transition state theory (QTST) or the quantum instanton (QI) model. The RPMD rate coefficients are within a factor of 2 of the exact quantum mechanical rate coefficients at temperatures in the deep tunneling regime. These results indicate that our previous assessment of the accuracy of the RPMD approximation for atom-diatom reactions remains valid for more complex polyatomic reactions. They also suggest that the sensitivity of the QTST and QI rate coefficients to the choice of the transition state dividing surface becomes more of an issue as the dimensionality of the reaction increases.