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Modern electronic structure theory is built around the Born–Oppenheimer approximation and the construction of an electronic Hamiltonian H ̂ e l (X) that depends on the nuclear position X (and not the nuclear momentum P). In this article, using the well-known theory of electron translation (Γ′) and rotational (Γ″) factors to couple electronic transitions to nuclear motion, we construct a practical phase-space electronic Hamiltonian that depends on both nuclear position and momentum, H ̂ P S (X , P). While classical Born–Oppenheimer dynamics that run along the eigensurfaces of the operator H ̂ e l (X) can recover many nuclear properties correctly, we present some evidence that motion along the eigensurfaces of H ̂ P S (X , P) can better capture both nuclear and electronic properties (including the elusive electronic momentum studied by Nafie). Moreover, only the latter (as opposed to the former) conserves the total linear and angular momentum in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For a system without spin–orbit coupling, the (i) nuclear plus electronic linear momentum and (ii) nuclear plus orbital electronic angular momentum are good quantum numbers. Thus, when a molecular system undergoes a nonadiabatic transition, there should be no change in the total linear or angular momentum. Now, the standard surface hopping algorithm ignores the electronic momentum and indirectly equates the momentum of the nuclear degrees of freedom to the total momentum. However, even with this simplification, the algorithm still does not conserve either the nuclear linear or the nuclear angular momenta. Here, we show that one way to address these failures is to dress the derivative couplings (i.e., the hopping directions) in two ways: (i) we disallow changes in the nuclear linear momentum by working in a translating basis (which is well known and leads to electron translation factors) and (ii) we disallow changes in the nuclear angular momentum by working in a basis that rotates around the center of mass [which is not well-known and leads to a novel, rotationally removable component of the derivative coupling that we will call electron rotation factors below, cf. Eq. (96)]. The present findings should be helpful in the short term as far as interpreting surface hopping calculations for singlet systems (without spin) and then developing the new surface hopping algorithm in the long term for systems where one cannot ignore the electronic orbital and/or spin angular momentum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]