CHELPG charges not printed

Trying to get CHELPG charges. No matter what I set in my input file, they are not printed.

What am I not specifying correctly?

Here’s the output file:

Q-Chem 6.0.0 for Intel X86 EM64T Linux

Parts of Q-Chem use Armadillo 9.900.5 (Nocturnal Misbehaviour).
http://arma.sourceforge.net/

Q-Chem begins on Sun Aug 28 18:37:19 2022

Host:
0

 Scratch files written to /work/qcscratch/qchem58862//

Jul1922 |scratch|qcdevops|jenkins|workspace|build_RNUM 5828
Processing $rem in /home/qchem6p0/config/preferences:
Processing $rem in /root/.qchemrc:

Checking the input file for inconsistencies… …done.


User input:

$molecule
0 1
H -2.952725 -0.026758 0.000000
C -1.871492 -0.010683 0.000000
C -1.172124 -0.001127 -1.197270
H -1.709244 -0.009471 -2.137819
C 0.211522 0.017487 -1.202676
H 0.754733 0.024328 -2.137945
C 0.916518 0.025234 0.000000
N 2.357874 0.119819 0.000000
H 2.747183 -0.346427 -0.829920
H 2.747183 -0.346427 0.829920
C 0.211522 0.017487 1.202676
H 0.754733 0.024328 2.137945
C -1.172124 -0.001127 1.197270
H -1.709244 -0.009471 2.137819
$end

$rem
EXCHANGE hf
BASIS 6-31g*
SYMMETRY false
SYM_IGNORE true
MAX_SCF_CYCLES 100
POP_MULLIKEN false
CHELPG TRUE
CHELPG_HEAD 30
CHELPG_DX 6
CHELPG_H 30
CHELPG_HA 50
$end


         Standard Nuclear Orientation (Angstroms)
I     Atom           X                Y                Z

1      H      -2.9527250000    -0.0267580000     0.0000000000
2      C      -1.8714920000    -0.0106830000     0.0000000000
3      C      -1.1721240000    -0.0011270000    -1.1972700000
4      H      -1.7092440000    -0.0094710000    -2.1378190000
5      C       0.2115220000     0.0174870000    -1.2026760000
6      H       0.7547330000     0.0243280000    -2.1379450000
7      C       0.9165180000     0.0252340000     0.0000000000
8      N       2.3578740000     0.1198190000     0.0000000000
9      H       2.7471830000    -0.3464270000    -0.8299200000

10 H 2.7471830000 -0.3464270000 0.8299200000
11 C 0.2115220000 0.0174870000 1.2026760000
12 H 0.7547330000 0.0243280000 2.1379450000
13 C -1.1721240000 -0.0011270000 1.1972700000
14 H -1.7092440000 -0.0094710000 2.1378190000

Nuclear Repulsion Energy = 271.46553253 hartrees
There are 25 alpha and 25 beta electrons
Requested basis set is 6-31G(d)
There are 42 shells and 119 basis functions

Total QAlloc Memory Limit 800000 MB
Mega-Array Size 188 MB
MEM_STATIC part 192 MB

                   Distance Matrix (Angstroms)
         H (  1)   C (  2)   C (  3)   H (  4)   C (  5)   H (  6)

C ( 2) 1.081352
C ( 3) 2.145845 1.386601
H ( 4) 2.473219 2.143967 1.083144
C ( 5) 3.385387 2.405446 1.383782 2.136483
H ( 6) 4.280031 3.386605 2.144364 2.464209 1.081597
C ( 7) 3.869592 2.788241 2.407608 3.386163 1.394098 2.144058
N ( 8) 5.312621 4.231379 3.729473 4.596568 2.462464 2.673946
H ( 9) 5.768874 4.704641 3.951600 4.656595 2.588621 2.412104
H ( 10) 5.768874 4.704641 4.426025 5.364770 3.270085 3.593820
C ( 11) 3.385387 2.405446 2.770300 3.853437 2.405352 3.384505
H ( 12) 4.280031 3.386605 3.851894 4.935026 3.384505 4.275890
C ( 13) 2.145845 1.386601 2.394540 3.378074 2.770300 3.851894
H ( 14) 2.473219 2.143967 3.378074 4.275638 3.853437 4.935026
C ( 7) N ( 8) H ( 9) H ( 10) C ( 11) H ( 12)
N ( 8) 1.444456
H ( 9) 2.044073 1.028452
H ( 10) 2.044073 1.028452 1.659840
C ( 11) 1.394098 2.462464 3.270085 2.588621
H ( 12) 2.144058 2.673946 3.593820 2.412104 1.081597
C ( 13) 2.407608 3.729473 4.426025 3.951600 1.383782 2.144364
H ( 14) 3.386163 4.596568 5.364770 4.656595 2.136483 2.464209
C ( 13)
H ( 14) 1.083144

A cutoff of 1.0D-09 yielded 821 shell pairs
There are 7047 function pairs
Smallest overlap matrix eigenvalue = 4.37E-04

Scale SEOQF with 1.000000e-01/1.000000e+00/1.000000e-01

Standard Electronic Orientation quadrupole field applied
Nucleus-field energy = -0.0000000015 hartrees
Guess from superposition of atomic densities
Warning: Energy on first SCF cycle will be non-variational
SAD guess density has 50.000000 electrons


General SCF calculation program by
Eric Jon Sundstrom, Paul Horn, Yuezhi Mao, Dmitri Zuev, Alec White,
David Stuck, Shaama M.S., Shane Yost, Joonho Lee, David Small,
Daniel Levine, Susi Lehtola, Hugh Burton, Evgeny Epifanovsky,
Bang C. Huynh

Hartree-Fock
A restricted SCF calculation will be
performed using DIIS
SCF converges when DIIS error is below 1.0e-05

Cycle Energy DIIS error

1    -288.5314138384      7.95e-02  
2    -285.6458913593      5.67e-03  
3    -285.7205951172      1.70e-03  
4    -285.7263886024      7.79e-04  
5    -285.7275563940      1.59e-04  
6    -285.7276104466      4.05e-05  
7    -285.7276168870      1.44e-05  
8    -285.7276178078      4.90e-06  Convergence criterion met

SCF time: CPU 2.51s wall 2.00s
SCF energy in the final basis set = -285.7276178078
Total energy in the final basis set = -285.7276178078


                Orbital Energies (a.u.)

Alpha MOs
– Occupied –
-15.5681 -11.2730 -11.2320 -11.2320 -11.2229 -11.2229 -11.2190 -1.2056
-1.1245 -1.0117 -0.9834 -0.8279 -0.8060 -0.6978 -0.6672 -0.6444
-0.5907 -0.5881 -0.5792 -0.5274 -0.5003 -0.4867 -0.4442 -0.3336
-0.2975
– Virtual –
0.1473 0.1626 0.2253 0.2447 0.2735 0.3120 0.3145 0.3401
0.3493 0.3782 0.4387 0.4840 0.5064 0.5337 0.5346 0.6613
0.7416 0.7564 0.7638 0.7954 0.8169 0.8331 0.8366 0.8430
0.8461 0.8500 0.8722 0.9145 0.9255 0.9773 1.0147 1.0717
1.1117 1.1119 1.1216 1.1225 1.1502 1.1764 1.1852 1.1914
1.2188 1.2330 1.2727 1.2904 1.3505 1.3590 1.4458 1.4468
1.5206 1.5792 1.6645 1.7100 1.7223 1.7675 1.7804 1.7988
1.8191 2.0438 2.1006 2.1233 2.1825 2.2195 2.2381 2.2774
2.3171 2.3911 2.4075 2.4438 2.4684 2.4961 2.5360 2.5729
2.6089 2.6526 2.7718 2.7985 2.8005 2.9170 2.9305 3.0343
3.0923 3.1023 3.1102 3.1798 3.2351 3.4541 3.8244 4.2478
4.5278 4.5492 4.5591 4.7609 4.7895 5.1300


                Cartesian Multipole Moments

Charge (ESU x 10^10)
             0.0000
Dipole Moment (Debye)
     X       0.3878      Y      -1.5314      Z      -0.0000
   Tot       1.5797
Quadrupole Moments (Debye-Ang)
    XX     -36.7257     XY      -4.5277     YY     -46.4768
    XZ      -0.0000     YZ      -0.0000     ZZ     -35.8985
Octopole Moments (Debye-Ang^2)
   XXX       6.3401    XXY     -13.7545    XYY       2.6884
   YYY      -2.5461    XXZ       0.0000    XYZ      -0.0000
   YYZ      -0.0000    XZZ       4.4069    YZZ      -1.2900
   ZZZ      -0.0000
Hexadecapole Moments (Debye-Ang^3)
  XXXX    -519.4614   XXXY     -39.5158   XXYY    -114.6696
  XYYY      -5.6231   YYYY     -50.5980   XXXZ      -0.0000
  XXYZ      -0.0000   XYYZ       0.0000   YYYZ      -0.0000
  XXZZ    -120.7360   XYZZ      -3.3448   YYZZ     -64.1512
  XZZZ       0.0000   YZZZ       0.0000   ZZZZ    -272.3271

Total job time: 2.60s(wall), 2.58s(cpu)
Sun Aug 28 18:37:21 2022

Two things:
(1) Printing CHELPG charges is apparently tied to printing Mulliken charges, so you need to remove PRINT_MULLIKEN = FALSE. I’ll add a note to the manual (if it’s not there already) because this was a surprise to me. Note that PRINT_MULLIKEN = TRUE is the default behavior, which is why I perhaps never noticed.
(2) Your job will then fail because the number of points per sphere that you are requesting (CHELPG_H and CHELPG_HA) is not allowed. Q-Chem’s ChElPG code uses Lebedev grids so only certain values are allowed. The error message in this case will very helpfully let you know what those are, or you can just use the defaults.

Update: Point (1) is added to manual for 6.0.2 release.

Thanks. It works now.

You might want to add this to the manual as well:

Valid Angular Grids are :
6, 18, 26, 38, 50, 74, 86, 110, 146, 170, 194, 230
266, 302, 434, 590, 770, 974, 1202, 1454, 1730
2030, 2354, 2702, 3074, 3470, 3890, 4334, 4802, 5294

since the referral to Table 5.2 and the discussion around CHELPG is a bit confusing. It probably would be better to add CHELPG text indicating the Lebedev angular quadrature grids are fixed to the table values and are not subject to user modification.

I have made this change for 6.0.2

Thanks! I appreciate that.

BTW, the manual should probably list the maximum number of atoms allowed in ESPChgFit. Apparently 642 is too many.

    Ground-State ChElPG Net Atomic Charges

 Atom                 Charge (a.u.)

  1 P                     1.634481
  2 O                    -1.024146


641 H -0.267832
642 H 0.638743

Sum of atomic charges = -18.000000

Q-Chem fatal error occurred in module 0, line 56:

too many atoms in ESPChgFit

The maximum is currently set to 200. This could be changed, although consider the typical use cases. It is well known that for “large” molecules, the CHELPG charges cease to be physically meaningful because the algorithm treats them simply as fitting parameters. This problem probably sets in well before 200 atoms.

That’s interesting. I hadn’t seen that elsewhere. Thanks for the insight.