Computational Tools for Predictive Modeling of Properties in Complex Actinide Systems
In this chapter we focus on methodological and computational aspects that are key to accurately modeling the spectroscopic and thermodynamic properties of molecular systems containing actinides within the density functional theory (DFT) framework. Our focus is on properties that require either an accurate relativistic all-electron description or an accurate description of the dynamical behavior of actinide species in an environment at finite temperature, or both. The implementation of the methods and the calculations discussed in this chapter were done with the NWChem software suite (Valiev et al. 2010). In the first two sections we discuss two methods that account for relativistic effects, the ZORA and the X2C Hamiltonian. Section 1.2.1 discusses the implementation of the approximate relativistic ZORA Hamiltonian and its extension to magnetic properties. Section 1.3 focuses on the exact X2C Hamiltonian and the application of this methodology to obtain accurate molecular properties. In Section 1.4 we examine the role of a dynamical environment at finite temperature as well as the presence of other ions on the thermodynamics of hydrolysis and exchange reaction mechanisms. Finally, Section 1.5 discusses the modeling of XAS (EXAFS, XANES) properties in realistic environments accounting for both the dynamics of the system and (for XANES) the relativistic effects.