Many-body theory calculations of positron binding to halogenated hydrocarbons

Abstract

Positron binding energies in halogenated hydrocarbons are calculated ab initio using many-body theory. For chlorinated molecules, including planars for which the interaction is highly anisotropic, very good to excellent agreement with experiment and recent density-functional-theory-based model-potential calculations is found. Predictions for fluorinated and brominated molecules are presented. The comparative effect of fluorination, chlorination, and bromination is elucidated by identifying trends within molecular families including dihaloethylenes and halomethanes based on global molecular properties (dipole moment, polarizability, ionization energy). It is shown that relative to brominated and chlorinated molecules, fluorinated molecules generate a less attractive positron-molecule potential due to larger ionization energies and smaller density of molecular orbitals close to the highest occupied molecular orbital, resulting in very weak, or in most cases loss of, positron binding. Overall, however, it is shown that the global molecular properties are not universal predictors of binding energies, exemplified by consideration of CH3⁢Cl vs cis-C2⁢H2⁢F2: Despite the latter having a larger dipole moment, lower ionization energy, and similar polarizability, its binding energy is significantly smaller (25 vs 3 meV, respectively), owing to the important contribution of multiple molecular orbitals to, and the anisotropy of, the positron-molecule correlation potential.