Perturbative calculation of Franck-Condon integrals: New hints for a rational implementation

Perturbative approaches to the mode mixing effects in the calculation of Franck–Condon integrals are analyzed and discussed. The zero order multidimensional Franck–Condon integrals are factorized into products of one-dimensional ones, so that recurrence relations can be used without need of storing a huge number of data. Calculations on model systems show that at the second order of perturbation, the method gives results in very good agreement with the exact ones, even in the case of significantly large Duschinsky effect. The accuracy of the results can be substantially improved by grouping together all those modes which are strongly mixed with each other, usually a few ones, for which Franck–Condon integrals can be computed exactly, and using the perturbative approach for treating the smaller mixing between all the other modes.