arXiv subjects

Jiří J. L. Vaníček

Publications and source records attributed to Jiří J. L. Vaníček.

18 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Non-Perturbative Vibrational Excitation by Arbitrary Electric Fields from Classical Phase-Space Dynamics

We present a non-perturbative framework for the quantum treatment of vibrational excitation in molecular systems driven by electric fields with arbitrary time dependence. For harmonic potentials with linear dipole coupling, the field-induced dynamics is exactly described by a displaced coherent state, whose evolution is completely determined by a complex phase-space coordinate. Closed-form expressions for this coordinate reveal a clear distinction between resonant and non-resonant regimes. The resulting vibrational populations follow a Poisson distribution determined by a dimensionless time-dependent phase-space displacement, for both resonant and non-resonant driving. Resonant driving results in an enhanced phase-space displacement, whereas finite detuning between the driving and vibrational frequencies leads to an exponential suppression of the phase-space displacement and vibrational excitation. While the approach reduces to the standard time-dependent perturbation theory in the weak-field limit, it remains valid in the strong-field regime, where perturbative treatments fail. Our results provide a transparent phase-space picture of vibrational control and enable non-perturbative state preparation in ultrafast spectroscopy.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2026

Resonance Raman spectroscopy from ab initio Hagedorn wavepacket dynamics

We present a practical, ab initio time-dependent method using Hagedorn wavepackets to simulate resonance Raman (RR) spectra of polyatomic molecules. Hagedorn functions---Gaussians multiplied by specific polynomials---are used to represent RR initial and final states because these functions are exact solutions to the time-dependent Schrödinger equation for at-most-quadratic potentials and can be propagated at zero cost beyond that of propagating the guiding Gaussian. Using efficient recursive formulae to compute overlaps between Hagedorn wavepackets, we can evaluate RR excitation profiles for arbitrary spectral signals, such as fundamental, overtone, combination, and hot bands. We then construct the Stokes and anti-Stokes RR spectra from these profiles. We first validate the method in a two-dimensional displaced, distorted, and Duschinsky-rotated harmonic model against numerically exact split-operator calculations. Then, we apply the method to compute RR spectra of anthracene by performing dynamics on a 66-dimensional harmonic potential energy surface constructed from density functional theory calculations.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2026

Nonzero-temperature vibronic spectra of polyatomic molecules from a zero-temperature classical trajectory

By combining coherence thermofield dynamics with the single-Hessian approximation, we enable simulations of low- to medium-resolution vibronic spectra of weakly anharmonic systems at nonzero temperatures, at negligible additional cost relative to zero-temperature calculations. Single-Hessian coherence thermofield Gaussian wavepacket dynamics is exact in any harmonic potential, provided that the reference Hessian is that of the final surface. When applied to Morse systems of increasing anharmonicity and varying temperature, this method successfully captures excited-state anharmonicity and key temperature-dependent spectral features, including hot bands and broadening. By combining the method with on-the-fly ab initio dynamics, we demonstrate its utility by computing the absorption spectra of naphthalene, aminocoumarin C450, and phenyl radical, and the photoelectron spectrum of SeO$_{2}^{-}$ . Within the ab initio single-Hessian approximation, after the zero-temperature spectrum is obtained at the cost of classical molecular dynamics (on the order of hours), all nonzero-temperature spectra are computed in seconds.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2026

Thawed Gaussian Ehrenfest dynamics

Ehrenfest dynamics is a widely used mixed quantum--classical approach for nonadiabatic molecular dynamics, whereas thawed Gaussian wavepacket dynamics provides an efficient semiclassical description of adiabatic nuclear quantum dynamics. Here we describe thawed Gaussian Ehrenfest dynamics (TGED), which unifies and generalizes these two methods to capture both electronic nonadiabaticity and nuclear quantum effects within a single framework. The fully variational formulation of TGED is derived by applying the time-dependent variational principle to a Hartree product of electronic and Gaussian nuclear wavepackets. Replacing the effective locally quadratic molecular potential obtained from this variational treatment by alternative effective locally quadratic potentials yields an infinite family of TGED methods, of which we present several members. We analyze the limiting cases of the general formalism and show, in particular, that it reduces to conventional Ehrenfest dynamics in the classical limit for the nuclei and to thawed Gaussian wavepacket dynamics in the absence of electronic coupling. Finally, we present explicit geometric integrators for the entire family of methods and identify the conditions under which the different approximations become exact.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2026

On the single-Hessian Gaussian wavepacket dynamics

Single-Hessian Gaussian wavepacket dynamics (GWD) significantly reduces the computational burden of Heller's local harmonic GWD, while maintaining comparable accuracy in approximating vibronic spectra. Here, we provide a new, symplectic derivation of the equations of motion of single-Hessian GWD and show that, unlike the local harmonic version, this method conserves the non-canonical symplectic structure on the manifold of Gaussian wavepackets and$-$for bounded dynamics in smooth potentials$-$avoids the drift of energy. Our numerical results suggest that, despite being much more efficient than the local harmonic variant, the single-Hessian GWD exhibits the same $\mathcal{O}(\hbar)$ asymptotic error in averages of observables. To further accelerate numerical simulations, we implement high-order time-stepping geometric integrators that are time-reversible and conserve the norm and symplectic structure exactly, regardless of the time step. In addition, we present explicit expressions for the exact evolution of the width of a single-Hessian Gaussian wavepacket in a general potential, as well as for the exact evolution of the whole wavepacket in a global harmonic potential. Using on-the-fly ab initio Gaussian wavepacket dynamics on the first excited-state surface of ammonia, we numerically confirm the conservation of geometric properties by these integrators and demonstrate that high-order integrators can enhance both accuracy and computational efficiency. We also compute the photoelectron spectrum of the difluorocarbene anion and the absorption spectrum of methylamine, and find that, in comparison with experiment, single-Hessian GWD outperforms global harmonic models and matches the accuracy of local harmonic GWD. Finally, we identify which spectral features are sensitive to the choice of reference Hessian.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2025

Capturing anharmonic effects in single vibronic level fluorescence spectra using local harmonic Hagedorn wavepacket dynamics

Hagedorn wavepacket dynamics yields exact single vibronic level (SVL) fluorescence spectra in global harmonic models. To partially describe the effects of anharmonicity, important in the spectra of real molecules, we describe a combination of the Hagedorn wavepacket approach to SVL spectroscopy with the local harmonic approximation. In a proof-of-principle study [Phys. Rev. A 111, L010801 (2025)], we successfully demonstrated the utility of this method by computing the SVL spectra of difluorocarbene, a floppy molecule with moderately anharmonic potential. Here, we describe the theory in detail and analyse the method more thoroughly. To assess the accuracy of the method independently of electronic structure errors, we use a two-dimensional Morse-type potential for which exact quantum benchmarks are available, and show that the local harmonic approach yields more accurate results than global harmonic approximations, especially for the emission spectra from higher initial vibrational levels. Next, we compare the global and local harmonic SVL spectra of anthracene, where the more expensive local harmonic corrections turn out to be less important as long as the correct global harmonic model is used. We also present additional local harmonic results for difluorocarbene, where treating anharmonicity is essential for accurate evaluation of the spectra. Yet, we also show that the structure of the difluorocarbene spectra can be explained qualitatively (but not quantitatively) with a reduced-dimensional harmonic model, for which the spectral intensities can be evaluated analytically.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2025

Simulating Molecular Single Vibronic Level Fluorescence Spectra with ab initio Hagedorn Wavepacket Dynamics

We present a practical, ab initio time-dependent method using Hagedorn wavepackets to efficiently simulate single vibronic level (SVL) fluorescence spectra of polyatomic molecules from arbitrary initial vibrational levels. We apply the method to compute SVL spectra of anthracene by performing wavepacket dynamics on a 66-dimensional harmonic potential energy surface constructed from density functional theory calculations. The Hagedorn approach captures both mode distortion (frequency changes) and mode mixing (Duschinsky rotation) within the harmonic approximation. We not only reproduce the previously reported simulation results for singly excited $12^1$ and $\overline{11}^1$ levels, but are also able to compute SVL spectra from multiply excited levels in good agreement with experiments. Notably, all spectra were obtained from the same wavepacket trajectory without any additional propagation beyond what is required for the emission spectrum from the ground vibrational level of the electronically excited state.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2025

Vibronic spectra at nonzero temperatures from Herman-Kluk coherence thermofield dynamics

We combine the semiclassical Herman--Kluk approximation with the coherence thermofield dynamics in order to evaluate vibrationally resolved electronic spectra at nonzero temperatures. In coherence thermofield dynamics, the dipole time correlation function is rewritten exactly as a wavepacket autocorrelation function, and the corresponding wavepacket is a solution to a zero-temperature time-dependent Schrödinger equation on an augmented configuration space of doubled dimension. We derive the Herman--Kluk representation for the thermofield wavepacket autocorrelation function and demonstrate how it can be computed from individual trajectories. To analyze this method, we compare spectra of Morse potentials of increasing anharmonicity evaluated at various temperatures with a numerically exact approach, with the Herman--Kluk coherence thermofield dynamics, and with the single-trajectory thawed Gaussian coherence thermofield dynamics. At low anharmonicity, both approximate methods yield accurate spectra. However, in a Morse potential with higher anharmonicity, the thawed Gaussian thermofield dynamics, based on the local harmonic approximation, fails to capture emerging hot bands, whereas the Herman--Kluk thermofield approach successfully reproduces them.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2025

Refined approach to cellularization: going from Heller's thawed Gaussian approximation to the Herman--Kluk propagator

We present a refined cellularization (Filinov filtering) scheme for the semiclassical Herman--Kluk propagator, which employs the inverse Weierstrass transform and optimal scaling of the cell's size with the number of cells, and was previously used only in the context of the dephasing representation. In the new methodology, the sampling density for the cell centers correlates with the cell size, allowing for an effective sampling of the phase space covered by the initial state of the system. The main advantage of the presented approach is that, unlike the standard cellularization, it converges to the original Herman--Kluk result in the limit of an infinite number of trajectories and to the thawed Gaussian approximation when a single trajectory is used. We illustrate the performance of the refined cellularization scheme by calculating autocorrelation functions and spectra of both integrable and chaotic model systems.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2025

Thawed Gaussian Ehrenfest dynamics at conical intersections: When can a single mean-field trajectory capture internal conversion?

The thawed Gaussian Ehrenfest dynamics is a single-trajectory method that partially includes both nuclear quantum and electronically nonadiabatic effects by combining the thawed Gaussian wavepacket dynamics with Ehrenfest dynamics. First, we demonstrate the improvement over the parent methods in a multidimensional system consisting of vertically displaced harmonic potentials with constant diabatic couplings, for which the thawed Gaussian Ehrenfest dynamics is exact. Then, we show that single-trajectory mean-field methods completely fail to capture electronic population transfer in the vicinity of conical intersections between potential energy surfaces associated with electronic states of different symmetry (i.e., belonging to different irreducible representations of the molecular point group). The underlying cause of this limitation suggests that the thawed Gaussian Ehrenfest dynamics can be useful for studying nonadiabatic dynamics close to conical intersections of electronic states of the same symmetry, which have been understudied owing to the difficulty in locating them. Using a model of this type of intersection, we compare the thawed Gaussian Ehrenfest dynamics with exact quantum dynamics and find that the approximate mean-field approach yields a molecular wavefunction that remains qualitatively similar to the exact one even after crossing and recrossing the conical intersection.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2025

Ehrenfest dynamics accelerated with SPEED

Mixed quantum-classical methods, such as surface hopping and Ehrenfest dynamics, have proven useful for describing molecular processes involving multiple electronic states. These methods require propagating many independent trajectories, which is computationally demanding. Therefore, we propose the single potential evaluation Ehrenfest dynamics (SPEED), a variation of Ehrenfest dynamics where all trajectories are propagated using a common local quadratic effective potential in the diabatic representation. This approach replaces the computational cost of propagating multiple trajectories with the evaluation of a single Hessian at each time step. We demonstrate the equivalence of standard Ehrenfest dynamics and SPEED in two realistic systems with (at most) quadratic diabatic potential energy surfaces and couplings: a quadratic vibronic coupling Hamiltonian model describing internal conversion in pyrazine and a model of atomic adsorption on a solid surface. The efficiency gain of our approach is particularly advantageous in on-the-fly ab initio applications. For this reason, we combined SPEED with the ALMO(MSDFT2) electronic structure method, which provides the diabatic potential describing charge transfer between two molecules. We find that SPEED qualitatively captures the temperature dependence of the hole transfer rate between two furan moieties and accurately predicts the final charge distribution after the collision. In contrast, but as expected, our approach is insufficient for describing photoisomerization of retinal due to the high anharmonicity of the potential energy surfaces.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2024

On-the-Fly Ab Initio Hagedorn Wavepacket Dynamics: Single Vibronic Level Fluorescence Spectra of Difluorocarbene

Hagedorn wavepackets have been used to compute single vibronic level (SVL) spectra efficiently in model harmonic potentials. To make the Hagedorn approach practical for realistic polyatomic molecules with anharmonicity, here we combine local harmonic Hagedorn wavepacket dynamics with on-the-fly ab initio dynamics. We then test this method by computing the SVL fluorescence spectra of difluorocarbene, a small, floppy molecule with a very anharmonic potential energy surface. Our time-dependent approach obtains the emission spectra of all initial vibrational levels from a single anharmonic semiclassical wavepacket trajectory without the need to fit individual anharmonic vibrational wavefunctions and to calculate the Franck-Condon factors for all vibronic transitions. We show that, whereas global harmonic models are inadequate for CF2, the spectra computed with the on-the-fly local harmonic Hagedorn wavepacket dynamics agree well with experimental data, especially for low initial excitations.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2024

Single vibronic level fluorescence spectra from Hagedorn wavepacket dynamics

In single vibronic level (SVL) fluorescence experiments, the electronically excited initial state is also excited in one or several vibrational modes. Whereas computing all contributing Franck-Condon factors individually becomes impractical in large systems, a time-dependent formalism has not been applied to simulate emission from arbitrary initial vibrational levels. Here, we use Hagedorn functions, which are products of a Gaussian and carefully generated polynomials, to represent SVL initial states. In systems where the potential is at most quadratic, the Hagedorn functions are exact solutions to the time-dependent Schrödinger equation and can be propagated with the same equations of motion as a simple Gaussian wavepacket. Having developed an efficient recursive algorithm to compute the overlaps between two Hagedorn wavepackets, we can now evaluate emission spectra from arbitrary vibronic levels using a single trajectory. We validate the method in two-dimensional global harmonic models by comparing it with quantum split-operator calculations. Additionally, we study the effects of displacement, distortion (squeezing), and Duschinsky rotation on SVL spectra. Finally, we demonstrate the applicability of the Hagedorn approach to high-dimensional systems on an example of displaced, distorted, and Duschinsky-rotated harmonic model with 100 degrees of freedom.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2024

On Hagedorn wavepackets associated with different Gaussians

Hagedorn functions are carefully constructed generalizations of Hermite functions to the setting of many-dimensional squeezed and coupled harmonic systems. Wavepackets formed by superpositions of Hagedorn functions have been successfully used to solve the time-dependent Schrödinger equation exactly in harmonic systems and variationally in anharmonic systems. For evaluating typical observables, such as position or kinetic energy, it is sufficient to consider orthonormal Hagedorn functions with a single Gaussian center. Here, we instead derive various relations between Hagedorn bases associated with different Gaussians, including their overlaps, which are necessary for evaluating quantities nonlocal in time, such as time correlation functions needed for computing spectra. First, we use the Bogoliubov transformation to obtain commutation relations between the ladder operators associated with different Gaussians. Then, instead of using numerical quadrature, we employ these commutation relations to derive exact recurrence relations for the overlap integrals between Hagedorn functions with different Gaussian centers. Finally, we present numerical experiments that demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of our algebraic method as well as its suitability to treat problems in spectroscopy and chemical dynamics.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Finite-temperature vibronic spectra from the split-operator coherence thermofield dynamics

We present a numerically exact approach for evaluating vibrationally resolved electronic spectra at finite temperatures using the coherence thermofield dynamics. In this method, which avoids implementing an algorithm for solving the von Neumann equation for coherence, the thermal vibrational ensemble is first mapped to a pure-state wavepacket in an augmented space, and this wavepacket is then propagated by solving the standard, zero-temperature Schrödinger equation with the split-operator Fourier method. We show that the finite-temperature spectra obtained with the coherence thermofield dynamics in a Morse potential agree exactly with those computed by Boltzmann-averaging the spectra of individual vibrational levels. Because the split-operator thermofield dynamics on a full tensor-product grid is restricted to low-dimensional systems, we briefly discuss how the accessible dimensionality can be increased by various techniques developed for the zero-temperature split-operator Fourier method.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2023

High-order geometric integrators for the variational Gaussian approximation

Among the single-trajectory Gaussian-based methods for solving the time-dependent Schrödinger equation, the variational Gaussian approximation is the most accurate one. In contrast to Heller's original thawed Gaussian approximation, it is symplectic, conserves energy exactly, and may partially account for tunneling. However, the variational method is also much more expensive. To improve its efficiency, we symmetrically compose the second-order symplectic integrator of Faou and Lubich and obtain geometric integrators that can achieve an arbitrary even order of convergence in the time step. We demonstrate that the high-order integrators can speed up convergence drastically compared to the second-order algorithm and, in contrast to the popular fourth-order Runge-Kutta method, are time-reversible and conserve the norm and the symplectic structure exactly, regardless of the time step. To show that the method is not restricted to low-dimensional systems, we perform most of the analysis on a non-separable twenty-dimensional model of coupled Morse oscillators. We also show that the variational method may capture tunneling and, in general, improves accuracy over the non-variational thawed Gaussian approximation.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Isotope effects in the electronic spectra of ammonia from ab initio semiclassical dynamics

Despite its simplicity, the single-trajectory thawed Gaussian approximation has proven useful for calculating vibrationally resolved electronic spectra of molecules with weakly anharmonic potential energy surfaces. Here, we show that the thawed Gaussian approximation can capture surprisingly well even more subtle observables, such as the isotope effects in the absorption spectra, and we demonstrate it on the four isotopologues of ammonia (NH$_{3}$, NDH$_{2}$, ND$_{2}$H, ND$_{3}$). The differences in their computed spectra are due to the differences in the semiclassical trajectories followed by the four isotopologues, and the isotope effects-narrowing of the transition band and reduction of the peak spacing-are accurately described by this semiclassical method. In contrast, the adiabatic harmonic model shows a double progression instead of the single progression seen in the experimental spectra. The vertical harmonic model correctly shows only a single progression but fails to describe the anharmonic peak spacing. Analysis of the normal-mode activation upon excitation provides insight into the elusiveness of the symmetric stretching progression in the spectra.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2023

Family of Gaussian wavepacket dynamics methods from the perspective of a nonlinear Schrödinger equation

Many approximate solutions of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation can be formulated as exact solutions of a nonlinear Schrödinger equation with an effective Hamiltonian operator depending on the state of the system. We show that several well-known Gaussian wavepacket dynamics methods, such as Heller's original thawed Gaussian approximation or Coalson and Karplus's variational Gaussian approximation, fit into this framework if the effective potential is a quadratic polynomial with state-dependent coefficients. We study such a nonlinear Schrödinger equation in general: in particular, we derive general equations of motion for the Gaussian's parameters, demonstrate the time reversibility and norm conservation, and analyze conservation of the energy, effective energy, and symplectic structure. We also describe efficient geometric integrators of arbitrary even orders of accuracy in the time step for the numerical solution of this nonlinear Schrödinger equation. The general presentation is illustrated by examples of this family of Gaussian wavepacket dynamics, including the variational and nonvariational thawed and frozen Gaussian approximations, and special limits of these methods based on the global harmonic, local harmonic, single-Hessian, local cubic, and single quartic approximations for the potential energy. Without substantially increasing the cost, the proposed single quartic variational thawed Gaussian wavepacket dynamics improves the accuracy over the local cubic approximation and, at the same time, conserves both the effective energy and symplectic structure, in contrast to the much more expensive local quartic approximation. Most results are presented in both Heller's and Hagedorn's parametrizations of the Gaussian wavepacket.

quant-ph↗