Full-dimensional, ab initio potential energy surface for glycine with characterization of stationary points and zero-point energy calculations by means of diffusion Monte Carlo and semiclassical dynamics

A full-dimensional, permutationally invariant potential energy surface (PES) for the glycine amino acid is reported. A precise fit to energies and gradients calculated at density functional theory DFT/B3LYP level of electronic-structure theory with Dunning’s aug-cc-pVDZ basis set is performed involving 20,000 low-energy points and associated Cartesian gradients plus about 50,000 additional higher-energy points. The fact that the DFT/B3LYP energies for the main stationary points are close to the coupled cluster CCSD(T) values, recently reported in the literature, provides reassurance about the accuracy of the constructed PES. Eight conformers and numerous saddle points are identified and characterized by describing geometries, relative stability, and harmonic frequencies. Stochastic and dynamical approaches are employed to study the vibrational ground state. Diffusion Monte Carlo simulations and approximate quantum dynamics, performed by means of the adiabatic switching semiclassical initial value representation technique, provide zero-point energies in excellent agreement with each other. The PES we report is sufficiently complete to permit spectroscopic and dynamical studies on glycine which may be of interest to the biochemical and astrochemistry communities.