English

Simulating Molecular Single Vibronic Level Fluorescence Spectra with ab initio Hagedorn Wavepacket Dynamics

Chemical Physics 2025-10-20 v5 Quantum Physics

Abstract

We present a practical, ab initio time-dependent method using Hagedorn wavepackets to efficiently simulate single vibronic level (SVL) fluorescence spectra of polyatomic molecules from arbitrary initial vibrational levels. We apply the method to compute SVL spectra of anthracene by performing wavepacket dynamics on a 66-dimensional harmonic potential energy surface constructed from density functional theory calculations. The Hagedorn approach captures both mode distortion (frequency changes) and mode mixing (Duschinsky rotation) within the harmonic approximation. We not only reproduce the previously reported simulation results for singly excited 12112^1 and 111\overline{11}^1 levels, but are also able to compute SVL spectra from multiply excited levels in good agreement with experiments. Notably, all spectra were obtained from the same wavepacket trajectory without any additional propagation beyond what is required for the emission spectrum from the ground vibrational level of the electronically excited state.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2403.00702,
  title  = {Simulating Molecular Single Vibronic Level Fluorescence Spectra with ab initio Hagedorn Wavepacket Dynamics},
  author = {Zhan Tong Zhang and Jiří J. L. Vaníček},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2403.00702},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

36 pages, 6 figures; Supporting Information: 10 pages, 5 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-28T15:06:13.448Z