Localized and Delocalized States of a Diamine Cation: Resolution of a Controversy

  • Marta Gałyńska
  • , Vilhjálmur Ásgeirsson
  • , Hannes Jónsson
  • , Ragnar Bjornsson

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Recent Rydberg spectroscopy measurements of a diamine molecule, N,N′-dimethylpiperazine (DMP), indicate the existence of a localized electronic state as well as a delocalized electronic state. This implies that the cation, DMP+, can similarly have its positive charge either localized on one of the N atoms or delocalized over both. This interpretation of the experiments has, however, been questioned based on coupled cluster calculations. In this article, results of high-level multireference configuration interaction calculations are presented where a localized state of DMP+ is indeed found to be present with an energy barrier separating it from the delocalized state. The energy difference between the two states is in excellent agreement with the experimental estimate. The results presented here, therefore, support the original interpretation of the experiments and illustrate a rare shortcoming of CCSD(T), the "gold standard"of quantum chemistry. These results have implications for the development of density functionals, as most functionals fail to produce the localized state.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1250-1255
Number of pages6
JournalJournal of Physical Chemistry Letters
Volume12
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 26 Jan 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information: M.G. acknowledges a postdoctoral fellowship from the University of Iceland Research Fund. This work was supported by the Icelandic Research Fund. R.B. acknowledges the Max Planck Society for funding. The computations were performed on resources provided by the Icelandic Research High Performance Computing Centre (IRHPC) at the University of Iceland. Publisher Copyright: © 2021 The Authors. Published by American Chemical Society.

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