LCAO 1 of 2
Channel: Patrick LeClair
Date: 06/04/2020

In this short lecture (1 of 2), we discuss how to guess variational wave functions for molecules. Using linear combinations of the original un-bonded atomic orbitals as our guess for the molecular wave function, we can use the variational method to optimize the guess. This gives us molecular orbitals. In the second lecture, we consider excited states, which gives us the molecular energy diagram familiar from chemistry class.