User Guide#

The Vibrational Analysis step computes anharmonic vibrational frequencies and the anharmonic zero-point energy of a molecule by second-order vibrational perturbation theory (VPT2), with whatever method a Model Chemistry step earlier in the flowchart chooses: ORCA, Gaussian, MOPAC, xTB, an MLFF, … It does the VPT2 itself rather than relying on each program’s own implementation, so it works, and gives the same kind of results, with every program SEAMM drives.

What it gives#

Harmonic frequencies overestimate both the zero-point energy and the observed fundamentals, and no single scale factor corrects both, or corrects different kinds of molecules consistently. VPT2 adds the cubic and quartic force constants:

  • the anharmonic fundamentals, the overtones (2νi) and combination bands (νi + νj), comparable with experiment band for band;

  • the anharmonic zero-point energy, including the constant term G0, the same convention as Gaussian’s;

  • the anharmonicity constants χ.

Limitations. For symmetric and spherical tops, molecules with degenerate vibrations such as CH4, NH3, ethane or benzene, the step gives the zero-point energy only, with the harmonic frequencies: the anharmonic fundamentals, overtones and constants of degenerate modes need formulas that are not in yet. The zero-point energy does not, because it does not depend on how the degenerate modes are chosen. Linear molecules are refused with a clear message. The structure must be a minimum. Modes below a threshold (200 cm-1 by default), torsions and other large-amplitude motions, are flagged in the output: VPT2 is not reliable for them, though they are kept in the zero-point energy.

How to use it#

Put a Model Chemistry step before it, and the molecule in the current structure:

steps:
- Model Chemistry: {model chemistry: "ORCA:DFT@B3LYP/def2-TZVP"}
- FromSMILESStep: {smiles string: O}
- Vibrational Analysis

By default the step optimizes the structure tightly first, over the program’s warm MDI engine, then computes:

  1. the Hessian at the minimum, giving the normal modes and harmonic frequencies;

  2. Hessians, or gradients, at structures displaced along the normal modes;

  3. the cubic and semi-diagonal quartic force constants, by finite differences;

  4. VPT2, with Fermi resonances found by Martin’s criteria, removed from the perturbation sums, and the resonant states mixed variationally (GVPT2).

Hessians or gradients#

At the displaced structures chooses what is computed there. automatic takes Hessians when the program has analytic second derivatives (ORCA for HF, most DFT functionals and MP2), which needs 2n Hessians for n modes (54 for propane), and gradients otherwise, about 2n2 of them (about 1,500 for propane), each much cheaper. Both give the same results.

Calculations via chooses how the program runs: automatic uses the warm MDI engine when the program has one and is installed here, else separate calculations where the job runs them; separate tasks runs them in parallel (on this machine or a cluster queue) but cannot optimize the structure, so optimize it with the program’s own step first.

Precision and step size#

Finite differences magnify errors in the Hessians or gradients: the quartic constants are second differences of Hessians, or third differences of gradients. The step therefore asks the program for tight convergence (xTB accuracy 1e-4, MOPAC relative tolerance 0.001, ORCA VeryTightSCF), both for the MDI engine and for separate calculations, and reports the numerical noise: how far apart the finite-difference routes to the same force constant are. If the quartic noise exceeds 5 cm-1 it warns that the results may be off by several cm-1.

Displacement is the step along each mode, in dimensionless normal coordinates. automatic is 0.20 for Hessians and 0.10 for gradients; mass-weighted is Gaussian’s convention, 0.025 Å amu1/2 for every mode. Smaller steps magnify the noise, larger ones add higher-order error.

Resonances and low modes#

Fermi resonances: GVPT2 (variational) (the default), deperturbed VPT2, or none (plain VPT2), which can give wildly wrong frequencies near a resonance. The resonance window (200 cm-1) and threshold (1 cm-1) are Martin’s two criteria. The zero-point energy does not depend on this choice.

Results#

The output lists, for each mode, the harmonic and anharmonic frequency, the shift and the overtone, marking resonances and low-frequency modes, then the zero-point energies and the noise. The force constants and all results are written to vpt2.json in the step’s directory. Results that can be saved to variables, tables or properties:

  • ZPE (property ZPE#VPT2#{model}), harmonic ZPE, ZPE correction (kJ/mol);

  • fundamentals, harmonic frequencies, overtones, combination bands and the anharmonicity constants chi (cm-1, json properties);

  • G0, the resonances treated, the flagged modes and the number of modes.

Validation#

Against Gaussian 09’s own anharmonic calculation (B3LYP/6-31G(d), Gaussian Hessians at this step’s displacements), the zero-point energies agree to 0.3 cm-1 for water and propane and 2 cm-1 for formaldehyde, the fundamentals to 0.7 cm-1 rms for propane. Against ORCA 6.1.1’s own VPT2 for water (B3LYP/def2-TZVP) the fundamentals agree to 0.02 cm-1.

For symmetric tops Gaussian uses a “hybrid scheme” for the rotational terms, and its zero-point energies differ from this step’s by 3–5.5 cm-1 (NH3, ethane, methane with one heavier hydrogen), all of it in the rotational (Watson and Coriolis) part. Making the same molecules asymmetric tops by changing the mass of one or two hydrogens slightly, Gaussian’s treatment becomes the general one and the zero-point energies agree to 0.3–1.1 cm-1 (methane, ammonia, ethane), the rotational part to 0.02 cm-1. Gaussian does no anharmonic analysis for spherical tops.

References#

The VPT2 formulas are those of Mills (1972); the resonance criteria are Martin et al.’s (1995) and the generalized treatment Barone’s (2005), with the polyad handling of Franke et al. (2021). The algebra is adapted from pyVPT2 (Philip Nelson, BSD-3-Clause). All are cited in the job’s references.

Indices and tables#