Showing papers by "Houcine Ghalla published in 2014"

Theoretical investigation of the relative stability of Na⁺He(n) (n = 2-24) clusters: many-body versus delocalization effects.

Abstract: The solvation of the Na(+) ion in helium clusters has been studied theoretically using optimization methods. A many-body empirical potential was developed to account for Na(+)-He and polarization interactions, and the most stable structures of Na(+)He(n) clusters were determined using the basin-hopping method. Vibrational delocalization was accounted for using zero-point energy corrections at the harmonic or anharmonic levels, the latter being evaluated from quantum Monte Carlo simulations for spinless particles. From the static perspective, many-body effects are found to play a minor role, and the structures obtained reflect homogeneous covering up to n = 10, followed by polyicosahedral packing above this size, the cluster obtained at n = 12 appearing particularly stable. The cationic impurity binds the closest helium atoms sufficiently to negate vibrational delocalization at small sizes. However, this snowball effect is obliterated earlier than shell completion, the nuclear wavefunctions of (4)He(n)Na(+) with n = 5-7, and n > 10 already exhibiting multiple inherent structures. The decrease in the snowball size due to many-body effects is consistent with recent mass spectrometry measurements.

Many-body effects on the structures and stability of Ba2+Xen (n = 1–39, 54) clusters

Abstract: The structures and relative stabilities of mixed Ba(2+)Xe(n) (n = 1-39, 54) clusters have been theoretically studied using basin-hopping global optimization. Analytical potential energy surfaces were constructed from ab initio or experimental data, assuming either purely additive interactions or including many-body polarization effects and the mutual contribution of self-consistent induced dipoles. For both models the stable structures are characterized by the barium cation being coated by a shell of xenon atoms, as expected from simple energetic arguments. Icosahedral packing is dominantly found, the exceptional stability of the icosahedral motif at n = 12 being further manifested at the size n = 32 where the basic icosahedron is surrounded by a dodecahedral cage, and at n = 54 where the transition to multilayer Mackay icosahedra has occurred. Interactions between induced dipoles generally tend to decrease the Xe-Xe binding, leading to different solvation patterns at small sizes but also favoring polyicosahedral growth. Besides attenuating relative energetic stability, many-body effects affect the structures by expanding the clusters by a few percents and allowing them to deform more.

RESEARCH ARTICLE Structural and spectroscopic investigation of the N-methylformamide-water (NMF···3H2O) complex

Abstract: In this work, theoretical studies on the structure, molecular properties, hydrogen bonding, and vibrational spectra of the N-methylformamide–water (NMF···3H2O) complex will be presented. The molecular geometry was optimised by using Hartree–Fock (HF), second Moller–Plesset (MP2), and density functional theory methods with different basis sets. The harmonic vibrational frequencies are computed by using the B3LYP method with 6-311 ++ G(d,p) as a basis set and then scaled with a suitable scale factor to yield good coherence with the observed values. The temperature dependence of various thermodynamic functions (heat capacity, entropy, and enthalpy changes) was also studied. A detailed analysis of the nature of the hydrogen bonding, using natural bond orbital (NBO) and topological atoms in molecules theory, has been reported.