Complex polarization propagator calculations of magnetic circular dichroism spectra

It is demonstrated that the employment of the nonlinear complex polarization propagator enables the calculation of the complete magnetic circular dichroism spectra of closed-shell molecules, including at the same time both the so-called Faraday A and B terms. In this approach, the differential absorption of right and left circularly polarized light in the presence of a static magnetic field is determined from the real part of the magnetic field-perturbed electric dipole polarizability. The introduction of the finite lifetimes of the electronically excited states into the theory results in response functions that are well behaved in the entire spectral region, i.e., the divergencies that are found in conventional response theory approaches at the transition energies of the system are not present. The applicability of the approach is demonstrated by calculations of the ultraviolet magnetic circular dichroism spectra of para-benzoquinone, tetrachloro-para-benzoquinone, and cyclopropane. The present results are obtained with the complex polarization propagator approach in conjunction with Kohn-Sham density functional theory and the standard adiabatic density functionals B3LYP, CAM-B3LYP, and BHLYP. (c) 2008 American Institute of Physics.