Nine questions on energy decomposition analysis.

The paper collects the answers of the authors to the following questions: Is the lack of precision in the definition of many chemical concepts one of the reasons for the coexistence of many partition schemes? Does the adoption of a given partition scheme imply a set of more precise definitions of the underlying chemical concepts? How can one use the results of a partition scheme to improve the clarity of definitions of concepts? Are partition schemes subject to scientific Darwinism? If so, what is the influence of a community's sociological pressure in the "natural selection" process? To what extent does/can/should investigated systems influence the choice of a particular partition scheme? Do we need more focused chemical validation of Energy Decomposition Analysis (EDA) methodology and descriptors/terms in general? Is there any interest in developing common benchmarks and test sets for cross-validation of methods? Is it possible to contemplate a unified partition scheme (let us call it the "standard model" of partitioning), that is proper for all applications in chemistry, in the foreseeable future or even in principle? In the end, science is about experiments and the real world. Can one, therefore, use any experiment or experimental data be used to favor one partition scheme over another? © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Conceptual Problem with Calculating Electron Densities in Finite Basis Density Functional Theory.

It is discussed that finite basis Density Functional Theory (DFT) calculations using a single Kohn-Sham determinant cannot reproduce, in a strict mathematical sense, the exact electron density corresponding to the same finite basis. This is because the DFT density derives from an idempotent first order density matrix, while the exact (full CI) density can only be obtained from a nonidempotent one. The problem is absent for the original Kohn-Sham integro-differential equations or if a strictly complete basis set is assumed.

Many-Body Energy Decomposition with Basis Set Superposition Error Corrections.

The problem of performing many-body decompositions of energy is considered in the case when BSSE corrections are also performed. It is discussed that the two different schemes that have been proposed go back to the two different interpretations of the original Boys-Bernardi counterpoise correction scheme. It is argued that from the physical point of view the "hierarchical" scheme of Valiron and Mayer should be preferred and not the scheme recently discussed by Ouyang and Bettens, because it permits the energy of the individual monomers and all the two-body, three-body, etc. energy components to be free of unphysical dependence on the arrangement (basis functions) of other subsystems in the cluster.

On Dipole Moments and Hydrogen Bond Identification in Water Clusters.

It is demonstrated that the localized orbitals calculated for a water cluster have small delocalization tails along the hydrogen bonds, that are crucial in determining the resulting dipole moments of the system. (By cutting them, one gets much smaller dipole moments for the individual monomers-close to the values one obtains by using a Bader-type analysis.) This means that the individual water monomers can be delimited only in a quite fuzzy manner, and the electronic charge density in a given point cannot be assigned completely to that or another molecule. Thus, one arrives to the brink of breaking the concept of a water cluster consisting of individual molecules. The analysis of the tails of the localized orbitals can also be used to identify the pairs of water molecules actually forming hydrogen bonds.

Hierarchy of the Collective Effects in Water Clusters.

The results of dipole moment as well as of intra- and intermolecular bond order calculations indicate the big importance of collective electrostatic effects caused by the nonimmediate environment in liquid water models. It is also discussed how these collective effects are built up as consequences of the electrostatic and quantum chemical interactions in water clusters.

The atomic orbitals of the topological atom.

The effective atomic orbitals have been realized in the framework of Bader's atoms in molecules theory for a general wavefunction. This formalism can be used to retrieve from any type of calculation a proper set of orthonormalized numerical atomic orbitals, with occupation numbers that sum up to the respective Quantum Theory of Atoms in Molecules (QTAIM) atomic populations. Experience shows that only a limited number of effective atomic orbitals exhibit significant occupation numbers. These correspond to atomic hybrids that closely resemble the core and valence shells of the atom. The occupation numbers of the remaining effective orbitals are almost negligible, except for atoms with hypervalent character. In addition, the molecular orbitals of a calculation can be exactly expressed as a linear combination of this orthonormalized set of numerical atomic orbitals, and the Mulliken population analysis carried out on this basis set exactly reproduces the original QTAIM atomic populations of the atoms. Approximate expansion of the molecular orbitals over a much reduced set of orthogonal atomic basis functions can also be accomplished to a very good accuracy with a singular value decomposition procedure.

Local spins: improved Hilbert-space analysis.

The decomposition of for a general wave function has been carried out in the framework of the Hilbert-space analysis. The one and two-center components fulfill all physical requirements imposed to date. An inherent ambiguity of the Hilbert-space decomposition of a two-electron quantity, in particular using a Mulliken-type scheme, is also discussed in detail. The formalism of effective atomic densities has allowed us to derive in a simple manner appropriate expressions for the decomposition of in the framework of Hilbert space analysis that are consistent with Mulliken population analysis and related quantities. Using a particular mapping we have derived the Hilbert-space expressions also in the framework of Löwdin population analysis in a straightforward manner. The numerical results obtained with the latter formalism have proved to be more robust and reliable.

Toward a Unique Definition of the Local Spin.

In this work, we demonstrate that there is a continuum of different formulations for the decomposition of ⟨S(2)⟩ that fulfills all physical requirements imposed to date. We introduce a new criterion based upon the behavior of single-electron systems to fix the value of the parameter defining that continuum, and thus we put forward a new general formula applicable for both single-determinant and correlated wave functions. The numerical implementation has been carried out in the three-dimensional physical space for several atomic definitions. A series of representative closed-shell and open-shell systems have been used to illustrate the performance of this new decomposition scheme against other existing approaches. Unlike other decompositions of ⟨S(2)⟩, the new scheme provides very small local-spin values for genuine diamagnetic molecules treated with correlated wave functions, in conformity with the physical expectations.