Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-chemistry-course-of-the-year-3-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2022/paper-2a/section-a/18/b/solution
Past exam of the chemistry course of the year 3 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge 2022 Paper 2A Section A 18 b Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-20
The Hückel orbital charge density and Hückel pi bond order giveEach site receives electron from the lowest orbital and one from the occupied nonbonding subspace, so at every carbon, summing to six. Relative to one neutral pi electron per carbon this is a pi charge of at each site.
For adjacent sites, only the lowest orbital contributes, giving . For opposite sites the nonbonding contribution reverses the sign: . These non-neighbour negative density-matrix entries are not extra sigma bonds or extra resonance integrals in the Hamiltonian. If only skeletal nearest-neighbour pi bond orders are requested, the four values are the relevant ones.
New to topics? Read the docs here!