Electronic structure of vanadium and chromium carbide cations, VC⁺and CrC⁺. Ground and low-lying states

The ground and low-lying states of the monopositive vanadium and chromium carbides, VC+ and CrC+ have been studied by multireference methods and quantitative basis sets. Potential energy curves for 17 (VC+) and 19 (CrC+) states have been fully calculated. A variety of binding modes is revealed in the low-lying spectrum of the two molecular cations, often accompanied with an electronic charge transfer from the metal cation towards carbon. Two states compete for the ground state identity in both systems. One state comprises two π and ½σ bonds (similarly to ScC+ and TiC+), while the other state forms a genuine triple bond. After a rather intricate analysis including core electron effects, scalar relativity and curve shifts, the formal ground states of VC+ and CrC+ are found to be of 3Δ and 2Δ symmetry, with estimated energy differences from the competing 1Σ+ and 4Σ− states of 1–3 and 3–7 kcal/mol, respectively. At the highest level of theory including core/valence correlation and one-electron relativistic effects, the calculated ground-state binding energies are in satisfactory agreement with available experimental values.