Chemical reactivity in the framework of pair density functional theories

Abstract

Chemical reactivity descriptors are derived within the framework of the pair density functional theory. These indices provide valuable information about bonding rearrangements and activating mechanisms upon electrophilic or nucleophilic reactions. Indices derived and tested in this work represent nonlocal counterparts of the local reactivity indices derived in the context of conceptual density functional theory (CDFT) and frequently used in reactivity studies; the Fukui function, the local softness and the dual descriptor. In this work, we show how these nonlocal indices provide a quantum chemical basis to explain the success of qualitative resonance models in chemical reactivity predictions. Also, local information is implicitly contained as CDFT indices are obtained by simple integration. As illustrative examples, we have considered in this work the Markovnikov's rule, the reactivity of enolate anion, the nucleophilic conjugate addition to α,β-unsaturated compounds and the electrophilic aromatic substitution of benzene derivatives. The densities used in this work were obtained with Hartree-Fock, Kohn-Sham DFT, and singles and doubles configuration interaction (CISD) approaches.

Keywords: chemical reactivity; electrophilic reaction; exchange‐correlation density; nucleophilic reaction; pair density functional theory.