Multistate vibronic interactions in difluorobenzene radical cations. I. Electronic structure calculations

The multimode multistate vibronic interactions between the five lowest electronic states of all three isomers of the difluorobenzene radical cation are investigated theoretically, based on ab initio electronic structure data, and employing a well-established vibronic coupling model. The approach rests on the linear vibronic coupling scheme, augmented by quadratic coupling terms for the totally symmetric modes. The underlying ionization potentials and coupling constants are obtained from ab initio coupled-cluster calculations. Low-energy conical intersections and strong vibronic couplings are found to prevail within the sets of X-A and B-C-D cationic states, while the interactions between these two sets of states are found to be weaker and depend on the isomer. The inclusion of the aforementioned quadratic couplings is found to be essential to correctly reproduce the lowest-energy conical intersections between the two different sets of electronic states. Differences between the three isomers regarding these quantities are pointed out. The results will be used as basis for multidimensional wave-packet dynamical simulations for these coupled potential energy surfaces to be presented in the following paper (Paper II).