Modeling of the nuclear parameters for H atoms in X-ray charge-density studies

Extensive and precise X-ray diffraction data for xylitol have been used to test different approaches to estimate nuclear parameters for H atoms in charge-density studies. The parameters from a neutron diffraction study of the same compound were taken as a reference. The resulting static charge densities obtained for the different approaches based on a multipole model were subjected to a topological analysis. The comparative analysis led to the following results. The procedure of extending the X-H bond to match bond lengths from neutron diffraction studies provides the best agreement with the neutron positional parameters. An isotropic model for the atomic displacements of H atoms is highly unsatisfactory and leads to significant deviations for the properties of the bond critical points including those that only involve non-H atoms. Anisotropic displacement parameters for H atoms can be derived from the X-ray data that are in agreement with the values from the neutron study, and the resulting charge-density models are in good agreement with the reference model. The anisotropic displacement parameters for H atoms are derived from the X-ray data as a sum of the external (rigid-body) and internal vibrations. The external vibrations are obtained from a TLS analysis of the ADPs of the non-H atoms and the internal vibrations from analysis of neutron diffraction studies of related compounds. The results from the analysis of positional and thermal parameters were combined to devise a 'best anisotropic' model, which was employed for three other systems where X-ray and neutron data were available. The results from the topological analysis of these systems confirm the success of the 'best anisotropic' model in providing parameters for the H atoms that give charge densities in agreement with the reference models based on H-atom parameters derived from neutron diffraction.