Decoupling of the Dirac equation correct to the third order for the magnetic perturbation

Relativistic calculations of magnetic resonance parameters: background and some recent developments

This article outlines some basic concepts of relativistic quantum chemistry and recent developments of relativistic methods for the calculation of the molecular properties that define the basic parameters of magnetic resonance spectroscopic techniques, i.e. nuclear magnetic resonance shielding, indirect nuclear spin-spin coupling and electric field gradients (nuclear quadrupole coupling), as well as with electron paramagnetic resonance g-factors and electron-nucleus hyperfine coupling. Density functional theory (DFT) has been very successful in molecular property calculations, despite a number of problems related to approximations in the functionals. In particular, for heavy-element systems, the large electron count and the need for a relativistic treatment often render the application of correlated wave function ab initio methods impracticable. Selected applications of DFT in relativistic calculation of magnetic resonance parameters are reviewed.

Relativistic two-component geometric approximation of the electron-positron contribution to magnetic properties in terms of Breit-Pauli spinors

An alternative approach for the calculation of the electron-positron (e-p) contribution to magnetic properties based on two-component Breit-Pauli spinors is presented. In it, the elimination of the small component scheme is applied to the inverse propagator matrix of e-p pairs. The effect of the positronic manifold is expressed as an operator acting on Breit-Pauli spinors. The operator form thus obtained sums up the relativistic correction as a geometric series and as a result a totally different behavior in the vicinity of a nucleus is obtained as compared to the one of the linear response approximation. This feature has deep influence in numerical values of the e-p contribution to the nuclear magnetic shielding of heavy atoms. Numerical calculations carried out for Kr, Xe, and I show that with this approach, the e-p contributions to this property are in good agreement with those of four-component methods.