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The Induction Energy

We now investigate the effect of including the induction energy for the SCM LJ parameters. We find that apart from increasing the expense of the calculations, the PES's remain qualitatively unchanged to the extent that most minima look the same, and for BzAr with tex2html_wrap_inline2377 the lowest-lying minima are effectively unchanged. Fig. 5 shows the contribution of the induction energy for a selection of minima and the results are easy to interpret. The size of the induction energy contribution is mostly attributable to the location of the Ar atoms relative to the benzene quadrupole. An Ar atom above the tex2html_wrap_inline1625 axis of the benzene molecule will be most stabilised by the inclusion of the induction energy, whereas an atom lying in the plane of the molecule will be least stabilised. This follows from the properties of the quadrupole moment on the benzene molecule. The best illustration of this is for the simplest system, BzAr tex2html_wrap_inline1451 , for which there is just one rearrangement mechanism, involving the tex2html_wrap_inline2383 minimum and only one transition state, (0|1|0), not counting permutational isomers. The minimum has tex2html_wrap_inline2387 symmetry, the Ar atom lying above the centre of the ring, and the transition state has tex2html_wrap_inline1417 symmetry with the Ar atom in the plane of the ring, equidistant from two adjacent H atoms. For the minimum the contribution of the induction energy to the total energy is 6.76%; for the transition state the contribution is only 0.680%.

   figure412

Figure 5: The contribution of the induction energy in various BzAr minima. The general trend is a decrease with increasing n, the increase at n=8 is due to the lowest minimum being two-sided for the first time for n>2. For BzAr tex2html_wrap_inline1413 the induction contribution is always small, as many Ar atoms are in unfavourable positions with respect to the molecular quadrupole.

We are now in a position to explain the results in Fig. 5. For BzAr tex2html_wrap_inline1409 , the induction energy contribution is also relatively high because the second Ar atom is situated directly below the centre of the benzene molecule i.e. diametrically opposite the first Ar. The lowest minima found for BzAr tex2html_wrap_inline1639 to BzAr tex2html_wrap_inline1635 have smaller contributions as the positions of the Ar atoms are no longer optimal with respect to the molecular quadrupole moment, especially as they are all one-sided. The stabilisation due to Ar-Ar dispersion interactions is proportionally greater than the change in the induction energy. At BzAr tex2html_wrap_inline2407 we see an increase again -- this is due to the global minimum being two-sided with one Ar atom on the tex2html_wrap_inline1625 axis below the benzene molecule, which is again an optimal position for stabilisation via the induction contribution.

For our BzAr tex2html_wrap_inline1413 lowest minimum the contribution of the induction energy is only 0.849% because many of the Ar atoms are far from the tex2html_wrap_inline1625 axis of the benzene molecule. Our lowest lying (19|0) minimum has a 0.462% contribution, which is smaller because there is no Ar atom in an optimal position below the benzene molecule. We also found an (18|1) type structure with a contribution of 0.745%, and more fully `solvated' (14|5) minimum with a contribution of 0.940% -- this structure has a more favourable arrangement of Ar atoms with respect to the molecular quadrupole moment.

For BzAr tex2html_wrap_inline1413 the variation of the contribution of the induction energy with respect to the structure can be easily rationalized and it is always small tex2html_wrap_inline2423 . We use this argument to justify our neglect of the induction energy in subsequent Monte Carlo and Molecular Dynamics simulations, which run many times faster in this approximation.


next up previous
Next: Monte Carlo Results Up: Results Previous: BzAr

Matt Hodges & Andreas Dullweber
Fri Oct 20 09:28:06 BST 1996