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Main Authors: Berholts, Marta, Käämbre, Tanel, Tõnisoo, Arvo, Pärna, Rainer, Kisand, Vambola, Kahk, Juhan Matthias
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.05735
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author Berholts, Marta
Käämbre, Tanel
Tõnisoo, Arvo
Pärna, Rainer
Kisand, Vambola
Kahk, Juhan Matthias
author_facet Berholts, Marta
Käämbre, Tanel
Tõnisoo, Arvo
Pärna, Rainer
Kisand, Vambola
Kahk, Juhan Matthias
contents The $Δ$-Self-Consistent-Field ($Δ$SCF) method permits calculations of core electron binding energies in materials and molecules at a modest computational cost. However, it has been reported that whilst this method works well for small molecules, its accuracy drops off dramatically when larger systems are considered. Particularly large errors have been reported for the anthrone molecule, which consists of 25 atoms. In this work, the gas-phase photoelectron spectrum of anthrone is revisited both computationally and experimentally. The measured C 1s binding energies in anthrone differ markedly from previously published values, and the new experimental results are in good agreement with $Δ$SCF calculations based on the SCAN functional. In addition, the performance of the $Δ$SCF method is evaluated for a dataset of 44 core electron binding energies from medium sized molecules containing between 10 and 40 atoms. The mean absolute error for this dataset - 0.19 eV - is comparable to the results of previous computational benchmarks. Overall, these results and general theoretical considerations indicate that the $Δ$SCF method is suitable for modelling localized excitations in both small and large molecules, and applications to other extended systems are also promising.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_05735
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Does the total energy difference method for modelling core level photoemission fail for bigger molecules?
Berholts, Marta
Käämbre, Tanel
Tõnisoo, Arvo
Pärna, Rainer
Kisand, Vambola
Kahk, Juhan Matthias
Chemical Physics
Computational Physics
The $Δ$-Self-Consistent-Field ($Δ$SCF) method permits calculations of core electron binding energies in materials and molecules at a modest computational cost. However, it has been reported that whilst this method works well for small molecules, its accuracy drops off dramatically when larger systems are considered. Particularly large errors have been reported for the anthrone molecule, which consists of 25 atoms. In this work, the gas-phase photoelectron spectrum of anthrone is revisited both computationally and experimentally. The measured C 1s binding energies in anthrone differ markedly from previously published values, and the new experimental results are in good agreement with $Δ$SCF calculations based on the SCAN functional. In addition, the performance of the $Δ$SCF method is evaluated for a dataset of 44 core electron binding energies from medium sized molecules containing between 10 and 40 atoms. The mean absolute error for this dataset - 0.19 eV - is comparable to the results of previous computational benchmarks. Overall, these results and general theoretical considerations indicate that the $Δ$SCF method is suitable for modelling localized excitations in both small and large molecules, and applications to other extended systems are also promising.
title Does the total energy difference method for modelling core level photoemission fail for bigger molecules?
topic Chemical Physics
Computational Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.05735