Electron-proton nonadiabaticity: characterization and development of non-Born-Oppenheimer electronic structure methods
type: CreativeWork
description: Nuclear quantum effects such as zero-point energy and hydrogen tunneling play an important role in a wide variety of chemical reactions. Moreover, non-Born-Oppenheimer effects are important in reactions such as proton-coupled electron transfer (PCET), which are integral to various electrocatalytic applications and bioenzymatic processes. The breakdown of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation between electronic and nuclear motions engenders the need for accurate characterization of the degree of nonadiabaticity. Furthermore, in regimes where the inclusion of these effects is vital, as it is for PCET systems, the development of non-Born-Oppenheimer quantum chemical methods is increasingly important. In this dissertation, we present diagnostics of electron-proton nonadiabaticity that can be obtained from standard electronic structure calculations and describe their application to representative systems, highlighting the mechanistic differences between two subclasses of PCET. In addition, we describe the development of new electronic structure methods within the nuclear-electronic orbital (NEO) framework, which is an orbital-based approach that inherently includes electron-proton nonadiabaticity by treating electrons and select protons quantum mechanically on equal footing. Previous studies using NEO involved applying mean-field-based approaches, which lacked sufficient electron-proton dynamical correlation, leading to overlocalized nuclear densities. Subsequent efforts focused on the development of explicitly correlated NEO approaches which, although accurate, were too computationally intractable to be practical for the study of PCET systems. In this dissertation, we describe two approaches to develop tractable NEO methods. Firstly, we describe the formulation of a multi-component density functional theory approach within the NEO framework, which involves the derivation of several electron-proton correlation functionals to accurately account for electron-proton correlatio…
abstract: Nuclear quantum effects such as zero-point energy and hydrogen tunneling play an important role in a wide variety of chemical reactions. Moreover, non-Born-Oppenheimer effects are important in reactions such as proton-coupled electron transfer (PCET), which are integral to various electrocatalytic applications and bioenzymatic processes. The breakdown of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation between electronic and nuclear motions engenders the need for accurate characterization of the degree of nonadiabaticity. Furthermore, in regimes where the inclusion of these effects is vital, as it is for PCET systems, the development of non-Born-Oppenheimer quantum chemical methods is increasingly important. In this dissertation, we present diagnostics of electron-proton nonadiabaticity that can be obtained from standard electronic structure calculations and describe their application to representative systems, highlighting the mechanistic differences between two subclasses of PCET. In addition, we describe the development of new electronic structure methods within the nuclear-electronic orbital (NEO) framework, which is an orbital-based approach that inherently includes electron-proton nonadiabaticity by treating electrons and select protons quantum mechanically on equal footing. Previous studies using NEO involved applying mean-field-based approaches, which lacked sufficient electron-proton dynamical correlation, leading to overlocalized nuclear densities. Subsequent efforts focused on the development of explicitly correlated NEO approaches which, although accurate, were too computationally intractable to be practical for the study of PCET systems. In this dissertation, we describe two approaches to develop tractable NEO methods. Firstly, we describe the formulation of a multi-component density functional theory approach within the NEO framework, which involves the derivation of several electron-proton correlation functionals to accurately account for electron-proton correlatio…
author: Sirjoosingh, Andrew
language: en
keywords: proton-coupled electron transfer, quantum chemistry, non-Born-Oppenheimer, nonadiabatic, density functional theory, explicitly correlated wavefunctions, hydrogen atom transfer, diabatization, nuclear quantum effects
date published: 2014-09-16T17:25:12Z
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:25:41Z
provider: University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/2142/50682