Internal conversion rates from the extended thawed Gaussian approximation: Theory and validation

Finite-temperature vibronic spectra from the split-operator coherence thermofield dynamics

We present a numerically exact approach for evaluating vibrationally resolved electronic spectra at finite temperatures using the coherence thermofield dynamics. In this method, which avoids implementing an algorithm for solving the von Neumann equation for coherence, the thermal vibrational ensemble is first mapped to a pure-state wavepacket in an augmented space, and this wavepacket is then propagated by solving the standard, zero-temperature Schrödinger equation with the split-operator Fourier method. We show that the finite-temperature spectra obtained with the coherence thermofield dynamics in a Morse potential agree exactly with those computed by Boltzmann-averaging the spectra of individual vibrational levels. Because the split-operator thermofield dynamics on a full tensor-product grid is restricted to low-dimensional systems, we briefly discuss how the accessible dimensionality can be increased by various techniques developed for the zero-temperature split-operator Fourier method.

Prediction of fluorescence quantum yields using the extended thawed Gaussian approximation

Spontaneous emission and internal conversion rates are calculated within harmonic approximations and compared to the results obtained within the semi-classical extended thawed Gaussian approximation (ETGA). This is the first application of the ETGA in the calculation of internal conversion and emission rates for real molecular systems, namely, formaldehyde, fluorobenzene, azulene, and a dicyano-squaraine dye. The viability of the models as black-box tools for prediction of spontaneous emission and internal conversion rates is assessed. All calculations were done using a consistent protocol in order to investigate how different methods perform without previous experimental knowledge using density functional theory (DFT) and time-dependent DFT (TD-DFT) with B3LYP, PBE0, ωB97XD, and CAM-B3LYP functionals. Contrasting the results with experimental data shows that there are further improvements required before theoretical predictions of emission and internal conversion rates can be used as reliable indicators for the photo-luminescence properties of molecules. We find that the ETGA performs rather similar to the vertical harmonical model. Including anharmonicities in the calculation of internal conversion rates has a moderate effect on the quantitative results in the studied systems. The emission rates are fairly stable with respect to computational parameters, but the internal conversion rate reveals itself to be highly dependent on the choice of the spectral line shape function, particularly the width of the Lorentzian function, associated with homogeneous broadening.