Predicting the photodynamics of cyclobutanone triggered by a laser pulse at 200 nm and its MeV-UED signals—A trajectory surface hopping and XMS-CASPT2 perspective

This work is part of a prediction challenge that invited theoretical/computational chemists to predict the photochemistry of cyclobutanone in the gas phase, excited at 200 nm by a laser pulse, and the expected signal that will be recorded during a time-resolved megaelectronvolt ultrafast electron diffraction (MeV-UED). We present here our theoretical predictions based on a combination of trajectory surface hopping with XMS-CASPT2 (for the nonadiabatic molecular dynamics) and Born–Oppenheimer molecular dynamics with MP2 (for the athermal ground-state dynamics following internal conversion), coined (NA+BO)MD. The initial conditions were sampled from Born–Oppenheimer molecular dynamics coupled to a quantum thermostat. Our simulations indicate that the main photoproducts after 2 ps of dynamics are CO + cyclopropane (50%), CO + propene (10%), and ethene and ketene (34%). The photoexcited cyclobutanone in its second excited electronic state S2 can follow two pathways for its nonradiative decay: (i) a ring-opening in S2 and a subsequent rapid decay to the ground electronic state, where the photoproducts are formed, or (ii) a transfer through a closed-ring conical intersection to S1, where cyclobutanone ring opens and then funnels to the ground state. Lifetimes for the photoproduct and electronic populations were determined. We calculated a stationary MeV-UED signal difference pair distribution function—ΔPDF(r) for each (interpolated) pathway as well as a time-resolved signal ΔPDF(r,t) and ΔI/I(s,t) for the full swarm of (NA+BO)MD trajectories. Furthermore, our analysis provides time-independent basis functions that can be used to fit the time-dependent experimental UED signals both ΔPDF(r,t) and ΔI/I(s,t) and potentially recover the population of photoproducts. We also offer a detailed analysis of the limitations of our model and their potential impact on the predicted experimental signals.