Intrinsic Reaction Coordinate (IRC) Keywords in the Jaguar Input File
- Overview
- Examples
IRC scans have been implemented using the methods described in Ref. [257]. The implementation includes IRC and minimum energy path (MEP) calculations. The calculations start at a transition state and move downhill in energy along the reaction path toward a minimum of the potential energy surface. They are mainly used to check that the given transition state is indeed the expected transition state for the reaction of interest. The local quadratic approximation (LQA) described in Ref. [276] has also been implemented. This provides a more robust method, as the calculations are not constrained, but it may deviate from the true IRC path if the steps are too large. For checking a transition state you can also use the "three-point IRC" method, in which one IRC step is taken in each direction, then a minimization performed to locate the reactants and products. This method is fast, but does not produce an IRC path. The keywords for IRC and MEP calculations are listed in Table 1. You can also use the keywords listed in Table 1 in Geometry Scan Keywords in the Jaguar Input File.
The “forward” and “reverse” directions are defined as follows. The first set of conditions that constitutes a valid definition is used.
| 1. | If two additional geometries are entered in the zmat2 and zmat3 sections, they are assumed to be the geometries for the reactant (in zmat2) and product (in zmat3). The forward direction is defined as moving from reactant to product. |
| 2. | If a vector is entered in the tvec section, it defines the forward direction. For example, |
&tvec
C2 H3 * 0.5
O1 C2 H3 * -1.0
&
This definition produces a composite coordinate that is the sum of 0.5 times the distance between atoms C2 and H3 and −1.0 times the angle O1-C2-H3.
Coordinates comprising this composite can be any combination of bond stretches (2 atoms listed), angle bends (3 atoms), and dihedral angles or torsions (4 atoms). Atom labels or index numbers for the atoms can be used in specifying atoms. Coordinate coefficients, specified by including an asterisk followed by a value after the last atom are optional. The default coefficient value is 1.0. The forward direction is the direction that makes the composite coordinate defined in this section larger.
| 3. | The Hessian eigenvector for the imaginary frequency mode with the most negative eigenvalue of the Hessian is used to define the forward direction. The phase of the eigenvector is chosen so that the largest coefficient is positive, and the forward direction is the direction that increases the coordinate for the largest coefficient. |
IRC calculations can be done in either Cartesian coordinates (specified with intopt=0), or redundant internal coordinates (intopt=1), which is the default.
IRC in any mode but “downhill” requires a Hessian, which must either be entered in the hess section, or calculated analytically with inhess=4 in the gen section. Initial guess Hessians are not useful, as they do not have any imaginary frequencies. If a Hessian is entered in the hess section (whether directly or from a restart file for a calculation that performed a Hessian evaluation) and symmetry is on, the IRC calculation might not produce any points or might not produce points on the actual reaction path if the transition state has higher symmetry than the reaction path. If this is the case, you should turn symmetry off (isymm=0 in the gen section). If you evaluate the Hessian with inhess=4 in the gen section, symmetry is turned off for analytic Hessian calculations, and the subsequent IRC calculations are done without symmetry.
The IRC calculation can fail if the step size is too small. The warning message states that the vector used to determine the step is too small. You can increase the step size by setting ircstep, or you can use irc_init_retry, ircfacinit and ircfacramp to automatically retry the first step with an increasing step size.
The IRC calculation can also fail if the potential energy surface is very flat, and the gradient that is used to find the next IRC point is too small. You can reduce the magnitude of the cutoff for determining when the gradient is too small with the keyword ircgcut, which should be set to a value less than 1.0. If you set this keyword, you should be careful not to set it so small that it does not filter out “noise” in the gradient.
The restart file for an IRC job includes the geometry of the last found IRC point in the zmat section. An ircmode=downhill setting is included in the gen section regardless of the initial setting, as a restart job proceeds downhill from the last found IRC point. If the job has not gone far enough to have found another IRC point, no ircmode=downhill setting is included.