Subshell fitting of relativistic atomic core electron densities for use in QTAIM analyses of ECP-based wave functions.

Scalar-relativistic, all-electron density functional theory (DFT) calculations were done for free, neutral atoms of all elements of the periodic table using the universal Gaussian basis set. Each core, closed-subshell contribution to a total atomic electron density distribution was separately fitted to a spherical electron density function: a linear combination of s-type Gaussian functions. The resulting core subshell electron densities are useful for systematically and compactly approximating total core electron densities of atoms in molecules, for any atomic core defined in terms of closed subshells. When used to augment the electron density from a wave function based on a calculation using effective core potentials (ECPs) in the Hamiltonian, the atomic core electron densities are sufficient to restore the otherwise-absent electron density maxima at the nuclear positions and eliminate spurious critical points in the neighborhood of the atom, thus enabling quantum theory of atoms in molecules (QTAIM) analyses to be done in the neighborhoods of atoms for which ECPs were used. Comparison of results from QTAIM analyses with all-electron, relativistic and nonrelativistic molecular wave functions validates the use of the atomic core electron densities for augmenting electron densities from ECP-based wave functions. For an atom in a molecule for which a small-core or medium-core ECPs is used, simply representing the core using a simplistic, tightly localized electron density function is actually sufficient to obtain a correct electron density topology and perform QTAIM analyses to obtain at least semiquantitatively meaningful results, but this is often not true when a large-core ECP is used. Comparison of QTAIM results from augmenting ECP-based molecular wave functions with the realistic atomic core electron densities presented here versus augmenting with the limiting case of tight core densities may be useful for diagnosing the reliability of large-core ECP models in particular cases. For molecules containing atoms of any elements of the periodic table, the production of extended wave function files that include the appropriate atomic core densities for ECP-based calculations, and the use of these wave functions for QTAIM analyses, has been automated.