Thermodynamic integration with harmonic reference
The Helmholtz free energy () of a fully interacting system (1) can be expressed in terms of that of harmonic system (0) as follows
where is anharmonic free energy. The latter term can be determined by means of thermodynamic integration (TI)
with being the potential energy of system , is a coupling constant and is the NVT ensemble average of the system driven by the Hamiltonian
Free energy of harmonic reference system within the quasi-classical theory writes
- Failed to parse (Conversion error. Server ("cli") reported: "[INVALID]"): {\displaystyle A_{0,\vct{x}} = A_\mathrm{el}(\vct{x}_0) - k_\mathrm{B} T \sum_{i = 1}^{N_\mathrm{vib}} \ln \frac{k_\mathrm{B} T}{\hbar \omega_i} }
with the electronic free energy Failed to parse (Conversion error. Server ("cli") reported: "[INVALID]"): {\displaystyle A_\mathrm{el}(\vct{x}_0)} for the configuration corresponding to the potential energy minimum with the atomic position vector Failed to parse (Conversion error. Server ("cli") reported: "[INVALID]"): {\displaystyle \vct{x}_0} , the number of vibrational degrees of freedom , and the angular frequency $\omega_i$ of vibrational mode .