Symmetrical windowing for quantum states in quasi-classical trajectory simulations: Application to electron transfer

It has recently been shown [S.J. Cotton and W.H. Miller, J. Chem. Phys. 139, 234112 (2013)] that a symmetrical windowing quasi-classical (SQC) approach [S.J. Cotton and W.H. Miller, J. Phys. Chem. A 117, 7190 (2013)] applied to the Meyer-Miller model [H.-D. Meyer and W.H. Miller, J. Chem. Phys. 70, 3214 (1979)] for the electronic degrees of freedom in electronically non-adiabatic dynamics is capable of quantitatively reproducing quantum mechanical results for a variety of test applications, including cases where "quantum" coherence effects are significant. Here we apply this same SQC methodology, within a flux-side correlation function framework, to calculate thermal rate constants corresponding to several proposed models of electron transfer processes [P. Huo, T.F. Miller III, and D.F. Coker, J. Chem. Phys. 139, 151103 (2013); A.R. Menzeleev, N. Ananth, and T.F. Miller III, J. Chem. Phys. 135, 074106 (2011)]. Good quantitative agreement with Marcus Theory is obtained over several orders of magnitude variation in non-adiabatic coupling. Moreover, the "inverted regime" in thermal rate constants (with increasing bias) known from Marcus Theory is also reproduced with good accuracy by this very simple classical approach. The SQC treatment is also applied to a recent model of photoinduced proton coupled electron transfer [C. Venkataraman, A. V. Soudackov, and S. Hammes-Schiffer, J. Chem. Phys. 131, 154502 (2009)] and population decay of the photoexcited donor state is found to be in reasonable agreement with results calculated via reduced density matrix theory. (C) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.