The accommodation of an excess electron by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) has important chemical and technological implications ranging from molecular electronics to charge balance in interstellar molecular clouds. Here, we use two-dimensional photoelectron spectroscopy and equation-of-motion coupled-cluster calculations of the radical anions of acridine (CHN) and phenazine (CHN) and compare our results for these species to those for the anthracene anion (CH). The calculations predict the observed resonances and additionally find low-energy two-particle-one-hole states, which are not immediately apparent in the spectra, and offer a slightly revised interpretation of the resonances in anthracene.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this work we study the Π resonances of a two-site model system designed to mimic a smooth transition from the Π temporary anion of N to the Π temporary anion of CO. The model system possesses the advantage that scattering and bound state () methods can be directly compared without obfuscating electron-correlation effects. Specifically, we compare resonance parameters obtained with the complex Kohn variational (CKV) method with those from stabilization, complex absorbing potential, and regularized analytical continuation calculations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe low-energy electron-scattering resonances of pyrene were characterized using experimental and computational methods. Experimentally, a two-dimensional photoelectron imaging of the pyrene anion was used to probe the dynamics of resonances over the first 4 eV of the continuum. Computationally, the energies and character of the anion states were determined using equation-of-motion coupled cluster calculations, while taking specific care to avoid the collapse onto discretized continuum levels, and an application of the pairing theorem.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn a diabatic picture metastable states subject to decay by electron detachment can be viewed as arising from the coupling between a discrete state and a continuum. In treating such states with bound-state quantum chemical methods, the continuum is discretized. In this study, we elucidate the role of overlap in this interaction in the application of the stabilization method to temporary anion states.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe stabilization method is widely used to theoretically characterize temporary anions and other systems displaying resonances. In this approach, information about a metastable state is encoded in the interaction of a diabatic discrete state and discretized continuum solutions, the energy of which are varied by scaling the extent of the basis set. In this work, we identify the aspects of the coupling between the discrete state and the discretized continuum states that encode information about the existence of complex stationary points and, hence, complex resonance energies in stabilization graphs.
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