We review the Surface Hopping including ARbitrary Couplings (SHARC) approach for excited‐state nonadiabatic dynamics simulations. As a generalization of the popular surface hopping method, SHARC allows simulating the full‐dimensional dynamics of molecules including any type of coupling terms beyond nonadiabatic couplings. Examples of these arbitrary couplings include spin–orbit couplings or dipole moment–laser field couplings, such that SHARC can describe ultrafast internal conversion, intersystem crossing, and radiative processes. The key step of the SHARC approach consists of a diagonalization of the Hamiltonian including these couplings, such that the nuclear dynamics is carried out on potential energy surfaces including the effects of the couplings—this is critical in any applications considering, for example, transition metal complexes or strong laser fields. We also give an overview over the new SHARC2.0 dynamics software package, released under the GNU General Public License, which implements the SHARC approach and several analysis tools. The review closes with a brief survey of applications where SHARC was employed to study the nonadiabatic dynamics of a wide range of molecular systems.This article is categorized under: Theoretical and Physical Chemistry > Reaction Dynamics and Kinetics Software > Simulation Methods Software > Quantum Chemistry

The developments of the open-source OpenMolcas chemistry software environment since spring 2020 are described, with a focus on novel functionalities accessible in the stable branch of the package or via interfaces with other packages. These developments span a wide range of topics in computational chemistry and are presented in thematic sections: electronic structure theory, electronic spectroscopy simulations, analytic gradients and molecular structure optimizations, ab initio molecular dynamics, and other new features. This report offers an overview of the chemical phenomena and processes OpenMolcas can address, while showing that OpenMolcas is an attractive platform for state-of-the-art atomistic computer simulations.

Femtosecond high-resolution pump-probe experiments have been used together with theoretical ab initio quantum calculations and wave packet dynamics simulations to decode an optimal femtosecond pulse that is generated from adaptive learning algorithms. This pulse is designed to maximize the yield of the organometallic ion CpMn(CO)₅while hindering the competing fragmentation. The sequential excitation and ionization of the target ion are accomplished by an optimized field consisting of two dominant subpulses with optimal frequencies and time delays.