arXiv subjects

Michele Ceotto

Publications and source records attributed to Michele Ceotto.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

A Semiclassical Gaussian Wavepacket Method for Non-Adiabatic Molecular Dynamics

We introduce two non-adiabatic semiclassical methods that employ two coupled Gaussian wavepackets, each one traveling on a separate diabatic potential energy surface. The wavepackets take the form of thawed Gaussians and are driven by classical equations of motion which account for the diabatic coupling. The classical equations of motion are derived in one case by enforcing the thawed Gaussian ansatz, while in the other the time-dependent variational principles to the thawed Gaussian ansatz. After a sanity check where both approximations reproduce Rabi oscillations, the methods are applied to two non-adiabatic potential energy scenarios. The first one involves two coupled displaced harmonic oscillators, as in a typical electron transfer reaction. The second one comprises a Morse potential coupled to an upper dissociative state, modeling a photo-dissociation process. In both scenarios, the variational thawed Gaussian approach is quite accurate, while the standard thawed Gaussian one fails to fully capture the non-adiabatic effects. Ultimately, non-adiabatic molecular dynamics is reproduced by means of two classical trajectories without introducing any artificial jump or other ad-hoc non-classical effects.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2021

Machine Learning for Vibrational Spectroscopy via Divide-and-Conquer Semiclassical Initial Value Representation Molecular Dynamics with Application to N-Methylacetamide

A machine learning algorithm for partitioning the nuclear vibrational space into subspaces is introduced. The subdivision criterion is based on Liouville's theorem, i.e. best preservation of the unitary of the reduced dimensionality Jacobian determinant within each subspace along a probe full-dimensional classical trajectory. The algorithm is based on the idea of evolutionary selection and it is implemented through a probability graph representation of the vibrational space partitioning. We interface this customized version of genetic algorithms with our divide-and-conquer semiclassical initial value representation method for calculation of molecular power spectra. First, we benchmark the algorithm by calculating the vibrational power spectra of two model systems, for which the exact subspace division is known. Then, we apply it to the calculation of the power spectrum of methane. Exact calculations and full-dimensional semiclassical spectra of this small molecule are available and provide an additional test of the accuracy of the new approach. Finally, the algorithm is applied to the divide-and-conquer semiclassical calculation of the power spectrum of 12-atom trans-N-Methylacetamide.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2020

Representing Molecular Ground and Excited Vibrational Eigenstates with Nuclear Densities obtained from Semiclassical Initial Value Representation Molecular Dynamics

We present in detail and validate an effective Monte Carlo approach for the calculation of the nuclear vibrational densities via integration of molecular eigenfunctions that we have preliminary employed to calculate the densities of the ground and the excited OH stretch vibrational states in protonated glycine molecule [C. Aieta et. al. Nat. Commun. 11, 4348 (2020)]. Here, we first validate and discuss in detail the features of the method on a benchmark water molecule. Then, we apply it to calculate on-the-fly the ab initio anharmonic nuclear densities in correspondence of the fundamental transitions of NH and CH stretches in protonated glycine. We show how we can gain both qualitative and quantitative physical insight by inspection of different one-nucleus densities and assign a character to spectroscopic absorption peaks using the expansion of vibrational states in terms of harmonic basis functions. The visualization of the nuclear vibrations in a purely quantum picture allows us to observe and quantify the effects of anharmonicity on the molecular structure, and to exploit the effect of IR excitations on specific bonds or functional groups, beyond the harmonic approximation. We also calculate the quantum probability distribution of bond-lengths, angles and dihedrals of the molecule. Notably, we observe how in the case of one type of fundamental NH stretching the typical harmonic nodal pattern is absent in the anharmonic distribution.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2019

Improved semiclassical dynamics through adiabatic switching trajectory sampling

We introduce an improved semiclassical dynamics approach to quantum vibrational spectroscopy. In this method, a harmonic-based phase space sampling is preliminarily driven toward non-harmonic quantization by slowly switching on the actual potential. The new coordinates and momenta serve as initial conditions for the semiclassical dynamics calculation, leading to a substantial decrease in the number of chaotic trajectories to deal with. Applications are presented for model and molecular systems of increasing dimensionality characterized by moderate or high chaoticity. They include a bidimensional Henon-Heiles potential, water, formaldehyde, and methane.The method improves accuracy and precision of semiclassical results and it can be easily interfaced with all pre-existing semiclassical theories.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2019

Reduced Rovibrational Coupling Cartesian Dynamics for Semiclassical Calculations: Application to the Spectrum of the Zundel Cation

We study the vibrational spectrum of the protonated water dimer, by means of a divide-and-conquer semiclassical initial value representation of the quantum propagator, as a first step in the study of larger protonated water clusters. We use the potential energy surface from [Huang et al., J. Chem. Phys. 122, 044308 (2005)]. To tackle such an anharmonic and floppy molecule, we employ fully Cartesian dynamics and carefully reduce the coupling to global rotations in the definition of normal modes. We apply the time-averaging filter and obtain clean power spectra relative to suitable reference states, that highlight the spectral peaks corresponding to the fundamental excitations of the system. Our trajectory-based approach allows us for physical interpretation of the very challenging proton transfer modes. We find that it is important, for such a floppy molecule, to selectively avoid to initially excite lower energy modes, in order to obtain cleaner spectra. The estimated vibrational energies display a mean absolute error (MAE) of $\sim29\text{cm}^{-1}$ with respect to available Multi-Configuration time-dependent Hartree calculations and $\text{MAE}\sim14\text{cm}^{-1}$ when compared to the optically active experimental excitations of the Ne-tagged Zundel cation. The reasonable scaling in the number of trajectories for Monte Carlo convergence is promising for applications to higher dimensional protonated cluster systems.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2019

Semiclassical vibrational spectroscopy with Hessian databases

We report on a new approach to ease the computational overhead of ab initio on-the-fly semiclassical dynamics simulations for vibrational spectroscopy. The well known bottleneck of such computations lies in the necessity to estimate the Hessian matrix for propagating the semiclassical pre-exponential factor at each step along the dynamics. The procedure proposed here is based on the creation of a dynamical database of Hessians and associated molecular geometries able to speed up calculations while preserving the accuracy of results at a satisfactory level. This new approach can be interfaced to both analytical potential energy surfaces and on-the-fly dynamics, allowing one to study even large systems previously not achievable. We present results obtained for semiclassical vibrational power spectra of methane, glycine, and N-acetyl-L-phenylalaninyl-L-methionine-amide, a molecule of biological interest made of 46 atoms.

physics.comp-ph↗

arXiv2019

Vibrational Investigation of Nucleobases by Means of Divide and Conquer Semiclassical Dynamics

In this work we report a computational study of the vibrational features of four different nucleobases employing the divide-and-conquer semiclassical initial value representation molecular dynamics method. Calculations are performed on uracil, cytosine, thymine, and adenine. Results show that the overall accuracy with respect to experiments is within 20 wavenumbers, regardless of the dimensionality of the nucleobase. Vibrational estimates are accurate even in the complex case of cytosine, where two relevant conformers are taken into account. These results are promising in the perspective of future studies on more complex systems, such as nucleotides or nucleobase pairs.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2019

An Effective Semiclassical Approach to IR Spectroscopy

We present a novel approach to calculate molecular IR spectra based on semiclassical molecular dynamics. The main advance from a previous semiclassical method [M. Micciarelli, R. Conte, J. Suarez, M. Ceotto J. Chem. Phys. 149, 064115 (2018)] consists in the possibility to avoid state-to-state calculations making applications to systems characterized by sizable densities of vibrational states feasible. Furthermore, this new method accounts not only for positions and intensities of the several absorption bands which make up the IR spectrum, but also for their shapes. We show that accurate semiclassical IR spectra including quantum effects and anharmonicities for both frequencies and intensities can be obtained starting from semiclassical power spectra. The approach is first tested against the water molecule, and then applied to the 10-atom glycine aminoacid.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2018

Anharmonic Vibrational Eigenfunctions and Infrared Spectra from Semiclassical Molecular Dynamics

We describe a new approach based on semiclassical molecular dynamics that allows to simulate infrared absorption or emission spectra of molecular systems with inclusion of anharmonic intensities. This is achieved from semiclassical power spectra by computing first the vibrational eigenfunctions as a linear combination of harmonic states, and then the oscillator strengths associated to the vibrational transitions. We test the approach against a 1D Morse potential and apply it to the water molecule with results in excellent agreement with discrete variable representation quantum benchmarks. The method does not require any grid calculations and it is directly extendable to high dimensional systems. The usual exponential scaling of the basis set size with the dimensionality of the system can be avoided by means of an appropriate truncation scheme. Furthermore, the approach has the advantage to provide IR spectra beyond the harmonic approximation without losing the possibility of an intuitive assignment of absorption peaks in terms of normal modes of vibration.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2018

Herman-Kluk propagator is free from zero-point energy leakage

Semiclassical techniques constitute a promising route to approximate quantum dynamics based on classical trajectories starting from a quantum-mechanically correct distribution. One of their main drawbacks is the so-called zero-point energy (ZPE) leakage, that is artificial redistribution of energy from the modes with high frequency and thus high ZPE to that with low frequency and ZPE due to classical equipartition. Here, we show that an elaborate semiclassical formalism based on the Herman-Kluk propagator is free from the ZPE leakage despite utilizing purely classical propagation. This finding opens the road to correct dynamical simulations of systems with a multitude of degrees of freedom that cannot be treated fully quantum-mechanically due to the exponential increase of the numerical effort.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2018

Simplified Approach to the Mixed Time-averaging Semiclassical Initial Value Representation for the Calculation of Dense Vibrational Spectra

We present and test an approximate method for the semiclassical calculation of vibrational spectra. The approach is based on the mixed time-averaging semiclassical initial value representation method, which is simplified to a form that contains a filter to remove contributions from approximately harmonic environmental degrees of freedom. This filter comes at no additional numerical cost, and it has no negative effect on the accuracy of peaks from the anharmonic system of interest. The method is successfully tested for a model Hamiltonian, and then applied to the study of the frequency shift of iodine in a krypton matrix. Using a hierarchic model with up to 108 normal modes included in the calculation, we show how the dynamical interaction between iodine and krypton yields results for the lowest excited iodine peaks that reproduce experimental findings to a high degree of accuracy.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2018

'Divide-and-conquer' semiclassical molecular dynamics: An application to water clusters

We present an investigation of vibrational features in water clusters performed by means of our recently established divide-and-conquer semiclassical approach [M. Ceotto, G. Di Liberto, and R. Conte, Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 010401 (2017)]. This technique allows us to simulate quantum vibrational spectra of high-dimensional systems starting from full-dimensional classical trajectories and projection of the semiclassical propagator onto a set of lower dimensional subspaces. The potential energy surface employed is a many-body representation up to three-body terms, in which monomers and two-body interactions are described by the high level Wang-Huang-Braams-Bowman (WHBB) water potential, while, for three-body interactions, calculations adopt a fast permutationally invariant ab initio surface at the same level of theory of the WHBB 3-body potential. Applications range from the water dimer up to the water decamer, a system made of 84 vibrational degrees of freedom. Results are generally in agreement with previous variational estimates in the literature. This is particularly true for the bending and the high-frequency stretching motions, while estimates of modes strongly influenced by hydrogen bonding are red shifted, in a few instances even substantially, as a consequence of the dynamical and global picture provided by the semiclassical approach.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2018

"Divide and Conquer" Semiclassical Molecular Dynamics: A practical method for Spectroscopic calculations of High Dimensional Molecular Systems

We extensively describe our recently established "divide-and-conquer" semiclassical method [M. Ceotto, G. Di Liberto and R. Conte, Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 010401 (2017)] and propose a new implementation of it to increase the accuracy of results. The technique permits to perform spectroscopic calculations of high dimensional systems by dividing the full-dimensional problem into a set of smaller dimensional ones. The partition procedure, originally based on a dynamical analysis of the Hessian matrix, is here more rigorously achieved through a hierarchical subspace-separation criterion based on Liouville's theorem. Comparisons of calculated vibrational frequencies to exact quantum ones for a set of molecules including benzene show that the new implementation performs better than the original one and that, on average, the loss in accuracy with respect to full-dimensional semiclassical calculations is reduced to only 10 wavenumbers. Furthermore, by investigating the challenging Zundel cation, we also demonstrate that the "divide-and-conquer" approach allows to deal with complex strongly anharmonic molecular systems. Overall the method very much helps the assignment and physical interpretation of experimental IR spectra by providing accurate vibrational fundamentals and overtones decomposed into reduced dimensionality spectra.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2017

Application of the Mixed Time-averaging Semiclassical Initial Value Representation method to Complex Molecular Spectra

The recently introduced mixed time-averaging semiclassical initial value representation molecular dynamics method for spectroscopic calculations [M. Buchholz, F. Grossmann, and M. Ceotto, J. Chem. Phys. 144, 094102 (2016)] is applied to systems with up to 61 dimensions, ruled by a condensed phase Caldeira-Leggett model potential. By calculating the ground state as well as the first few excited states of the system Morse oscillator, changes of both the harmonic frequency and the anharmonicity are determined. The method faithfully reproduces blueshift and redshift effects and the importance of the counter term, as previously suggested by other methods. Differently from previous methods, the present semiclassical method does not take advantage of the specific form of the potential and it can represent a practical tool that opens the route to direct ab initio semiclassical simulation of condensed phase systems.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2017

Semiclassical "Divide-and-Conquer" Method for Spectroscopic Calculations of High Dimensional Molecular Systems

A new semiclassical "divide-and-conquer" method is presented with the aim of demonstrating that quantum dynamics simulations of high dimensional molecular systems are doable. The method is first tested by calculating the quantum vibrational power spectra of water, methane, and benzene - three molecules of increasing dimensionality for which benchmark quantum results are available - and then applied to C60, a system characterized by 174 vibrational degrees of freedom. Results show that the approach can accurately account for quantum anharmonicities, purely quantum features like overtones, and the removal of degeneracy when the molecular symmetry is broken.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2016

The Importance of the Pre-exponential Factor in Semiclassical Molecular Dynamics

This paper deals with the critical issue of approximating the pre-exponential factor in semiclassical molecular dynamics. The pre-exponential factor is important because it accounts for the quantum contribution to the semiclassical propagator of the classical Feynman path fluctuations. Pre-exponential factor approximations are necessary when chaotic or complex systems are simulated. We introduced pre-exponential factor approximations based either on analytical considerations or numerical regularization. The approximations are tested for power spectrum calculations of more and more chaotic model systems and on several molecules, for which exact quantum mechanical values are available. The results show that the pre-exponential factor approximations introduced are accurate enough to be safely employed for semiclassical simulations of complex systems.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2015

Mixed Semiclassical Initial Value Representation Time-Averaging Propagator for Spectroscopic Calculations

A mixed semiclassical initial value representation expression for spectroscopic calculations is derived. The formulation takes advantage of the time-averaging filtering and the hierarchical properties of different trajectory based propagation methods. A separable approximation is then introduced that greatly reduces (about an order of magnitude) the computational cost compared with a full Herman-Kluk time-averaging semiclassical calculation for the same systems. The expression is exact for the harmonic case and it is tested numerically for a Morse potential coupled to one or two additional harmonic degrees of freedom. Results are compared to full Herman-Kluk time-averaging calculations and exact quantum wavepacket propagations. We found the peak positions of the mixed semiclassical approximations to be always in very good agreement with full quantum calculations, while overtone peak intensities are lower with respect to the exact ones. Given the reduced computational effort required by this new mixed semiclassical approximation, we believe the present method to make spectroscopic calculations available for higher dimensional systems than accessible before.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2014

Graphics processing units accelerated semiclassical initial value representation molecular dynamics

This paper presents a Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) implementation of the Semiclassical Initial Value Representation (SC-IVR) propagator for vibrational molecular spectroscopy calculations. The time-averaging formulation of the SC-IVR for power spectrum calculations is employed. Details about the GPU implementation of the semiclassical code are provided. Four molecules with an increasing number of atoms are considered and the GPU-calculated vibrational frequencies perfectly match the benchmark values. The computational time scaling of two GPUs (NVIDIA Tesla C2075 and Kepler K20) respectively versus two CPUs (Intel Core i5 and Intel Xeon E5-2687W) and the critical issues related to the GPU implementation are discussed. The resulting reduction in computational time and power consumption is significant and semiclassical GPU calculations are shown to be environment friendly.

physics.comp-ph↗