Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 27, 2026

Isotopic Effect in Double Proton Transfer Process of Porphycene Investigated by Enhanced QM/MM Method
Published on: July 19, 2019
Path-integral calculations of heavy atom kinetic isotope effects in condensed phase reactions using higher-order
Alexandra Vardi-Kilshtain1, Asaf Azuri, Dan Thomas Major
1Department of Chemistry and the Lise Meitner-Minerva Center of Computational Quantum Chemistry, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel.
Abstract:
A convenient approach to compute kinetic isotope effects (KIEs) in condensed phase chemical reactions is via path integrals (PIs). Usually, the primitive approximation is used in PI simulations, although such quantum simulations are computationally demanding. The efficiency of PI simulations may be greatly improved, if higher-order Trotter factorizations of the density matrix operator are used. In this study, we use a higher-order PI method, in conjunction with mass-perturbation, to compute heavy-atom KIE in the decarboxylation of orotic acid in explicit sulfolane solvent. The results are in good agreement with experiment and show that the mass-perturbation higher-order Trotter factorization provides a practical approach for computing condensed phase heavy-atom KIE.
Related Concept Videos
Reaction Mechanisms: The Steady-State Approximation
Equilibrium Conditions for a Particle
To understand the concept of equilibrium, let us first consider the forces acting on an object. When different forces act on an object, they can...
Chemical Equilibria: Systematic Approach to Equilibrium Calculations
The first step is to identify all the chemical reactions involved, The...
Reaction Mechanisms: Rate-limiting Step Approximation
Transition State Theory
Mass Spectrometry: Isotope Effect

