Constructing quantum mechanical models from diabatic schemes: external field modulation of effective energy barriers for bond breaking/formation processes

Abstract

We have recently proposed an approach where chemical transformations can be described as quantum processes involving the modulation of entangled states by an applied external field (Arteca and Tapia in Phys Rev A 84:012115, 2011). In practical implementations, we gain insight into these processes by using simple quantum-mechanical models derived from diabatic schemes. In this context, reactant, product, and, eventually, intermediate species, are assigned to diabatic basis functions, and then entangled by an external field into a quantum state from which all observable properties of the chemical reaction should emerge. Here, we extend our previous model for bond breaking/formation in diatomic molecules (Arteca et al. in J Math Chem 50:949, 2012). We consider the entire manifold of semiclassical models defined by only two diabatic basis functions: a harmonic well for the “molecular” bound state, and an exponential potential energy function for the asymptotically separated fragments (the “product” channel). Using a two-parameter space to describe all models, we determine how the topology of the total energy function is affected by the shape of the applied field. We show that strong and weak local couplings with the external field modify substantially the occurrence of energy barriers, in contrast to using the uniform (i.e., space-invariant) coupling employed in previous works.