Christian Schiling

Chemical bonding is a nonlocal phenomenon that binds atoms into molecules. Its ubiquitous presence in chemistry, however, stands in stark contrast to its ambiguous definition and the lack of a universal perspective for its understanding. In this talk, we rationalize and characterize chemical bonding through the lens of an equally nonlocal concept from quantum information: orbital entanglement. We introduce maximally entangled atomic orbitals (MEAOs), whose entanglement pattern is shown to recover both Lewis (two-center) and beyond-Lewis (multicenter) structures, with multipartite entanglement serving as a comprehensive index of bond strength. Our unifying framework for bonding analyses is effective not only for equilibrium geometries but also for transition states in chemical reactions and complex phenomena such as aromaticity. It also has the potential to elevate Hilbert-space atomic partitioning to match the prevalent real-space partitioning in the theory of atoms in molecules. Accordingly, our work opens new pathways for understanding fuzzy chemical concepts using rigorous, quantitative descriptors from quantum information.