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In light of the rapid progress of ultrafast chemical dynamics driven by the pulse lasers having width as short as several tens of attoseconds, we herein develop a theory of nonadiabatic electron wavepacket dynamics in condensed phases, with which to directly track the dynamics of electronic-state mixing such as electron transfer in liquid solvents. Toward this goal, we combine a theory of path-branching representation for nonadiabatic electronwavepacket dynamics in vacuum fa mixed quantum-classical representation, Yonehara and Takatsuka [J. Chem. Phys. 129, 134109 (2008)]g and a theory of entropy functional to treat chemical dynamics in condensed phases fa mixed dynamical-statistical representation, Takatsuka and Matsumoto [Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys· 18, 1771 (2016)]g· Difficulty and complexity in the present theoretical procedure arise in embedding the Schrödinger equation into classically treated statistical environment. Nevertheless, the resultant equations of motion for electronic-state mixing due to the intrinsic nonadiabatic interactions and solute-solvent interactions, along with the force matrix that drives nuclear branching paths, both turn out to be clear enough to make it possible to comprehend the physical meanings behind. We also discuss briefly the nonvalidness of naive application of the notion of nonadiabatic transition dynamics among free energy surfaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A theory for dynamics of molecular photoionization from nonadiabatic electron wavepackets driven by intense pulse lasers is proposed. Time evolution of photoelectron distribution is evaluated in terms of out-going electron flux (current of the probability density of electrons) that has kinetic energy high enough to recede from the molecular system. The relevant electron flux is in turn evaluated with the complex-valued electronic wavefunctions that are time evolved in nonadiabatic electron wavepacket dynamics in laser fields. To uniquely rebuild such wavefunctions with its electronic population being lost by ionization, we adopt the complex-valued natural orbitals emerging from the electron density as building blocks of the total wavefunction. The method has been implemented into a quantum chemistry code, which is based on configuration state mixing for polyatomic molecules. Some of the practical aspects needed for its application will be presented. As a first illustrative example, we show the results of hydrogen molecule and its isotope substitutes (HD and DD), which are photoionized by a two-cycle pulse laser. Photon emission spectrum associated with above threshold ionization is also shown. Another example is taken from photoionization dynamics from an excited state of a water molecule. Qualitatively significant effects of nonadiabatic interaction on the photoelectron spectrum are demonstrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the previous study on nonadiabatic reaction dynamics including boron clusters [T. Yonehara and K. Takatsuka, J. Chem. Phys. 137, 22A520 (2012)], we explore deep into highly excited electronic states of the singlet boron cluster (B12) to find the characteristic features of the densely quasi-degenerate electronic state manifold, which undergo very frequent nonadiabatic transitions and thereby intensive electronic state mixing among very many of the relevant states. So much so, isolating the individual adiabatic states and tracking the expected potential energy surfaces both lose the physical sense. This domain of molecular situation is far beyond the realm of the Born- Oppenheimer approximation. To survey such a violent electronic state-mixing, we apply a method of nonadiabatic electron wavepacket dynamics, the semiclassical Ehrenfest method. We have tracked those electron wavepackets and found the electronic state mixing looks like an ultrafast diffusion in the Hilbert space, which results in huge fluctuation. Furthermore, due to such a violent mixing, the quantum phases associated with the electronic states are swiftly randomized, and consequently the coherence among the electronic states are lost quickly. Besides, these highly excited states are mostly of highly poly-radical nature, even in the spin singlet manifold and the number of radicals amounts up to 10 electrons in the sense of unpaired electrons. Thus the electronic states are summarized to be poly-radical and decoherent with huge fluctuation in shorter time scales of vibrational motions. The present numerical study sets a theoretical foundation for unknown molecular properties and chemical reactivity of such densely quasi-degenerate chemical species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We develop the path-branching representation for nonadiabatic electron wavepacket dynamics [T. Yonehara and K. Takatsuka, J. Chem. Phys. 132, 244102 (2010)] so as to treat dynamics in an energy range comparable to the barrier height of adiabatic potential energy curves. With this representation two characteristic chemical reaction dynamics are studied, in which an incident nuclear wavepacket encounters a potential barrier, on top of which lies another nonadiabatically coupled adiabatic potential curve: (1) Dynamics of initial paths coming into the nonadiabatic interaction region with energy lower than the barrier height. They branch into two pieces (and repeat branching subsequently), the upper counterparts of which can penetrate into a classically inaccessible high energy region and eventually branch back to the product region on the ground state curve. This is so to say surmounting the potential barrier via nonadiabatically coupled excited state, and phenomenologically looks like the so-called deep tunneling. (2) Dynamics of classical paths whose initial energies are a little higher than the barrier but may be lower than the bottom of the excited state. They can undergo branching and some of those components are trapped on top of the potential barrier, being followed by the population decay down to the lower state flowing both to product and reactant sites. Such expectations arising from the path-branching representation are numerically confirmed with full quantum mechanical wavepacket dynamics. This phenomenon may be experimentally observed as time-delayed pulses of wavepacket trains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Guided by a notion of symmetry-breaking modulation or control of the so-called symmetry-allowed conical intersection by shining laser pulses [Arasaki, Y.; et al. Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 2010, 12, 1239], we here explore a possibility of the modulation of the symmetry-allowed conical intersection by chemical substitution with functional groups. As a first case study, we choose photoisomerization dynamics of s-trans-1,3-butadiene H2C=CH--CH=CH2 with one of the terminal hydrogen atoms being replaced by -CF3. The target here is not the control of the rate of nonadiabatic transition but to know which one of the double bonds is more frequently isomerized in the radiationless quenching process on the way back to the ground state. We analyze when and how the symmetry is broken by tracking ab initio molecular dynamics paths, the mean-field paths with use of the nonadiabatic electron wavepacket dynamics, and the associated branching paths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Classical trajectory study of nuclear motion on the Born−Oppenheimer potential energy surfaces is now one of the standard methods of chemical dynamics. In particular, this approach is inevitable in the studies of large molecular systems. However, as soon as more than a single potential energy surface is involved due to nonadiabatic coupling, such a naive application of classical mechanics loses its theoretical foundation. This is a classic and fundamental issue in the foundation of chemistry. To cope with this problem, we propose a generalization of classical mechanics that provides a path even in cases where multiple potential energy surfaces are involved in a single event and the Born−Oppenheimer approximation breaks down. This generalization is made by diagonalization of the matrix representation of nuclear forces in nonadiabatic dynamics, which is derived from a mixed quantum-classical representation of the electron−nucleus entangled Hamiltonian Takatsuka, K. J. Chem. Phys.2006, 124, 064111. A manifestation of quantum fluctuation on a classical subsystem that directly contacts with a quantum subsystem is discussed. We also show that the Hamiltonian thus represented gives a theoretical foundation to examine the validity of the so-called semiclassical Ehrenfest theory (or mean-field theory) for electron quantum wavepacket dynamics, and indeed, it is pointed out that the electronic Hamiltonian to be used in this theory should be slightly modified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A high energy atomic cluster undergoing frequent structural isomerization behaves like a liquid droplet, from which atoms or molecules can be emitted. Even after evaporation, the daughter cluster may still keep changing its structure. We study the dynamics of such an evaporation process of atomic evaporation. To do so, we develop a statistical rate theory for dissociation of highly nonrigid molecules and propose a simple method to calculate the absolute valueof classical phase-space volume for a potential function that has many locally stable basins. The statistical prediction of the final distribution of the released kinetic energy is also developed. A direct application of the Rice−Ramsperger−Kassed−Marcus (RRKM) theory to this kind of multichannel chemical reaction is prohibitively difficult, unless further modeling and/or assumptions are made. We carry out a completely nonempirical statistical calculation for these dynamical quantities, in that nothing empirical is introduced like remodeling (or reparametrization) of artificial potential energy functions or recalibration of the phase-space volume referring to other “empirical” values such as those estimated with the molecular dynamics method. The so-called dividing surface is determined variationally, at which the flux is calculated in a consistent manner with the estimate of the phase-space volume in the initial state. Also, for the correct treatment of a highly nonrigid cluster, the phase-space volume and flux are estimated without the separation of vibrational and rotational motions. Both the microcanonical reaction rate and the final kinetic energy distribution thus obtained have quite accurately reproduced the corresponding quantities given by molecular dynamics calculations. This establishes the validity of the statistical arguments, which in turn brings about the deeper physical insight about the evaporation dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The difference between quantum and classical survival probabilities for molecular dissociation dynamics in the time domain, which arises mainly from quantum mechanical tunneling, has interesting characteristics that are not noticed through the counterpart in energy domain. It is shown that the early stage undergoes a fast tunneling, while the later stage is characterized with a long-lasting slow tunneling. The mechanism of this behavior is analyzed in terms of a quasi-semiclassical theory featuring the geometrical distribution of the so-called tunneling points. In particular, the role of dynamical tunneling is discussed as a phenomenon that typifies the time dependence of tunneling dynamics. It is predicted that these tunneling characteristics will be reflected in the isotope effect and should be experimentally observable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a theoretical principle to directly monitor the bifurcation of quantum wavepackets passing through nonadiabatic regions of a molecule that is placed in intense continuous wave (CW) laser fields. This idea makes use of the phenomenon of laser-driven photon emission from molecules that can undergo nonadiabatic transitions between ionic and covalent potential energy surfaces like Li+ F- and LiF. The resultant photon emission spectra are of anomalous yet characteristic frequency and intensity, if pumped to an energy level in which the nonadiabatic region is accessible and placed in a CW laser field. The proposed method is designed to take the time-frequency spectrogram with an appropriate time-window from this photon emission to detect the time evolution of the frequency and intensity, which depends on the dynamics and location of the relevant nuclear wavepackets. This method is specifically designed for the study of dynamics in intense CW laser fields and is rather limited in scope than other techniques for femtosecond chemical dynamics in vacuum. The following characteristic features of dynamics can be mapped onto the spectrogram: (1) the period of driven vibrational motion (temporally confined vibrational states in otherwise dissociative channels, the period and other states of which dramatically vary depending on the CW driving lasers applied), (2) the existence of multiple nuclear wavepackets running individually on the field-dressed potential energy surfaces, (3) the time scale of coherent interaction between the nuclear wavepackets running on ionic and covalent electronic states after their branching (the so-called coherence time in the terminology of the theory of nonadiabatic interaction), and so on. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A complicated yet interesting induced photon emission can take place by a nonadiabatic intramolecular electron transfer system like LiF under an intense CW laser [Y. Arasaki, S. Scheit, and K. Takatsuka, J. Chem. Phys. 138, 161103 (2013)]. Behind this phenomena, the crossing point between two potential energy curves of covalent and ionic natures in diabatic representation is forced to oscillate, since only the ionic potential curve is shifted significantly up and down repeatedly (called the Dynamical Stark effect). The wavepacket pumped initially to the excited covalent potential curve frequently encounters such a dynamically moving crossing point and thereby undergoes very complicated dynamics including wavepacket bifurcation and deformation. Intramolecular electron transfer thus driven by the coupling between nonadiabatic state-mixing and laser fields induces irregular photon emission. Here in this report we discuss the complicated spectral features of this kind of photon emission induced by infrared laser. In the low frequency domain, the photon emission is much more involved than those of ultraviolet/visible driving fields, since many field-dressed states are created on the ionic potential, which have their own classical turning points and crossing points with the covalent counterpart. To analyze the physics behind the phenomena, we develop a perturbation theoretic approach to the Riccati equation that is transformed from coupled first-order linear differential equations with periodic coefficients, which are supposed to produce the so-called Floquet states. We give mathematical expressions for the Floquet energies, frequencies, and intensities of the photon emission spectra, and the cutoff energy of their harmonic generation. Agreement between these approximate quantities and those estimated with full quantum calculations is found to be excellent. Furthermore, the present analysis provides with notions to facilitate deeper understanding for the physical and mathematical mechanisms of the present photon emission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When a nonadiabatic system that has an ionic state (large dipole moment) and a covalent state (small dipole moment) is located in a strong laser field, the crossing point of the two potential energy curves is forced to oscillate due to the oscillating laser field and to meet wavepackets moving on the potential curves many times. This leads to additional transitions between the two states, and under favorable conditions, the wavepacket may be confined in a spatial region rich in nonadiabatic interaction. In this paper, taking the LiF molecule system in a continuous-wave driving field as a prototypical example, the dynamical origins of the wavepacket confinement are theoretically investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When vibrational dynamics on an ionic state (large dipole moment) is coupled to that on a neutral state (small dipole moment) such as at an avoided crossing in the alkali halide system, the population transfer between the states cause oscillation of the molecular dipole, leading to dipole emission. Such dynamics may be driven by an external field. We study how the coupled wavepacket dynamics is affected by the parameters (intensity, frequency) of the driving field with the aim of making use of the photoemission as an alternative detection scheme of femtosecond and subfemtosecond vibrational and electronic dynamics or as a characteristic optical source. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]