Role of Overlap between the Discrete State and Pseudocontinuum States in Stabilization Calculations of Metastable States

In 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. This is accomplished by use of a minimalist stabilization calculation on the lowest energy l=2 (D) resonance of the finite spherical well potential using two basis functions, one describing the diabatic discrete state and the other a diabatic discretized continuum state. We show that even such a simple treatment predicts a complex resonance energy in good agreement with the exact result. If the energy of the discrete state is assumed to be constant, which is tantamount to orthogonalizing the discretized continuum state to the discrete state, it is demonstrated that the square of the off-diagonal coupling has a maximum close to the crossing point of the orthogonalized diabatic curves and that the curvature in the coupling is responsible for the complex stationary point associated with the resonance. Moreover, this curvature is a consequence of the overlap between the two diabatic states.

Ab initio calculation of the cross sections for electron impact vibrational excitation of CO via the (2)Π shape resonance

The stabilization method is used to calculate the complex potential energy curve of the (2)Π state of CO(-) as a function of bond length, with the refinement that separate potentials are determined for p-wave and d-wave attachment and detachment of the excess electron. Using the resulting complex potentials, absolute vibrational excitation cross sections are calculated as a function of electron energy and scattering angle. The calculated cross sections agree well with experiment.