Importance of the intermolecular Pauli repulsion in embedding calculations for molecular properties: the case of excitation energies for a chromophore in hydrogen-bonded environments.

In embedding methods such as those labeled commonly as QM/MM, the embedding operator is frequently approximated by the electrostatic potential generated by nuclei and electrons in the environment. Such approximation is especially useful in studies of the potential energy surface of embedded species. The effect on energy of neglecting the non-Coulombic component of the embedding operator is corrected a posteriori. The present work investigates applicability of such approximation in evaluation of electronic excitation energy, the accuracy of which depends directly on that of the embedding potential. For several model systems involving cis-7-hydroxiquinoline hydrogen-bonded to small molecules, we demonstrate that such truncation of the embedding operator leads to numerically unstable results upon increasing the size of the atomic basis sets. Approximating the non-Coulombic component of the embedding potential using the expression derived in Frozen-Density Embedding Theory ([Wesolowski and Warshel, J. Phys. Chem.1993, 97, 8050] and subsequent works) by means of even a simple bifunctional dependent on the electron density of the chromophore and its hydrogen-bonded environment, restores the numerical stability of the excitation energies that reach a physically meaningful limit for large basis sets.

The Importance of Going beyond Coulombic Potential in Embedding Calculations for Molecular Properties: The Case of Iso-G for Biliverdin in Protein-Like Environment.

The importance of the nonelectrostatic component of the embedding potential is investigated by comparing the complexation induced shifts of the iso-g obtained in embedding calculations to its supermolecular counterparts. The analyses are made in view of such multilevel simulations, for which supermolecular strategy is either impractical or impossible, such as the planned simulations for the whole enzyme ferredoxin oxidoreductase. For the biliverdin radical surrounded by a few amino acids, it is shown that the embedding potential comprising only Coulomb terms fails to reproduce even qualitatively the shifts evaluated from supermolecular calculations. The nonelectrostatic component of the exact embedding potential is a bifunctional of two electron densities [Wesolowski and Warshel, J. Phys. Chem. 1993, 97, 8050; Wesolowski, Phys. Rev. A 2008, 77, 012504]. Therefore we analyze in detail both the quality of the approximant for the bifunctional and the importance of the choice of the electron densities at which it is evaluated in practical calculations.

Cooperative effect of hydrogen-bonded chains in the environment of a pi --> pi* chromophore.

Laser resonant two-photon ionization UV spectra provide clear evidence that the effect of increasing the length of the hydrogen-bonded chain consisting of molecules such as NH(3), H(2)O, or CH(3)OH on the pi --> pi* excitations of cis-7-hydroxyquinoline (cis-7HQ) is strongly cooperative [ Thut ; et al. J. Phys. Chem. A 2008 , 112 , 5566. ] A theoretical analysis of the experimental data is provided to identify the origin of this cooperativity for four chains. The computational method to determine the changes of the electronic structure of a molecule due to interactions with its environment uses the nonempirical expression for the embedding potential [ Wesolowski ; Warshel J. Phys. Chem. 1993 , 97 , 8050. ] It is concluded that the electronic coupling between the molecules at the ends of the chain, which are hydrogen-bonded to cis-7HQ, plays a crucial role in this cooperativity.