Quantum crystallography: A perspective
Abstract
Extraction of the complete quantum mechanics from X‐ray scattering data is the ultimate goal of quantum crystallography. This article delivers a perspective for that possibility. It is desirable to have a method for the conversion of X‐ray diffraction data into an electron density that reflects the antisymmetry of an N‐electron wave function. A formalism for this was developed early on for the determination of a constrained idempotent one‐body density matrix. The formalism ensures pure‐state N‐representability in the single determinant sense. Applications to crystals show that quantum mechanical density matrices of large molecules can be extracted from X‐ray scattering data by implementing a fragmentation method termed the kernel energy method (KEM). It is shown how KEM can be used within the context of quantum crystallography to derive quantum mechanical properties of biological molecules (with low data‐to‐parameters ratio). © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Nov 14, 2017
- Source ID
- 10.1002/jcc.25102
Entities
People
- Chérif F Matta
- Lou Massa
Organizations
- Canada Foundation for Innovation
- Dalhousie University
- Hunter College
- Mount Saint Vincent University
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council
- United States Naval Research Laboratory