Aromaticity, although introduced long time ago, remains a challenging chemical concept. The basic reason is that there is no clear definition based on quantum chemical description, yet it persists as a very powerful idea, allowing the interpretation of many chemical phenomena. As a consequence there exist many indices aimed at quantifying molecular aromaticity. An especially intriguing finding is that some of these measures are mutually orthogonal or divergent, an unacceptable situation in front of the necessary aromaticity index uniqueness. Moreover, there exist many ambiguities about how to exactly compute many of these measures.

The present paper introduces two novel approaches, solving many of the problems related to other ways to assess aromaticity. The first method is based on powers of the density matrix and proper projection operators, allowing to quantify aromaticity as a 6-center chemical interaction (SCI) [1-3]. The second method is based on Molecular Quantum Similarity [4] measures, which permit to compare quantitatively the first order density matrices of molecular fragments to a reference system, thereby obtaining a new aromaticity index.

Both new indices are found to correlate very well. Lack of correlation with some other indices is discussed and shown to be due to shortcomings of or debatable arbitrary choices in many other techniques. The SCI model is critically examined for clamped benzenes and distorted benzenes. The grounds for the lack of correlation with NICS aromaticity indices are examined and the effects on the multidimensional character of aromaticity reported.

[1] P. Bultinck, R. Ponec, S. Van Damme, J. Phys. Org. Chem. 2005, 18, 706.
[2] R. Ponec, P. Bultinck, A. Gallegos-Saliner, J. Phys. Chem. A. 2005, 109, 6606.
[3] P. Bultinck, R. Ponec, R. Carbó-Dorca, J. Comput. Chem. 2006, in press.
[4] P. Bultinck, X. Girones, R. Carbó-Dorca, Rev. in Comput. Chem. (Eds: K.B. Lipkowitz, R. Larter and T. Cundari), John Wiley, Hoboken (USA), 21, 127, 2005.

• Legal notice:
  

  Copyright (c) Pielaszek Research, all rights reserved.
  The above materials, including auxiliary resources, are subject to Publisher's copyright and the Author(s) intellectual rights. Without limiting Author(s) rights under respective Copyright Transfer Agreement, no part of the above documents may be reproduced without the express written permission of Pielaszek Research, the Publisher. Express permission from the Author(s) is required to use the above materials for academic purposes, such as lectures or scientific presentations.
  In every case, proper references including Author(s) name(s) and URL of this webpage: https://science24.com/paper/7526 must be provided.

1. Bond Indices in Dihydrogen Bonds