Gauge invariance of the nuclear spin/electron orbit interaction and NMR spectral parameters

A gauge transformation of the vector potential AmI , associated to the magnetic dipole mI of nucleus I in a molecule, has been studied. The conditions for gauge invariance of nuclear magnetic shielding, nuclear spin/electron orbit contribution to spin-spin coupling between two nuclei, I and J, and electronic current density induced by mI , have been expressed via quantum mechanical sum rules that are identically satisfied for exact and optimal variational wavefunctions. It is shown that separate diamagnetic and paramagnetic contributions to the properties transform into one another in the gauge transformation, whereas their sum is invariant. Therefore, only total response properties have a physical meaning. In particular, the disjoint diamagnetic and paramagnetic components of nuclear spin/electron orbit contributions to coupling constants are not uniquely defined. The diamagnetic contribution to the nuclear spin-spin coupling tensor, evaluated as an expectation value in the Ramsey theory, can alternatively be expressed as a sum-over-states formula, by rewriting the second-order Hamiltonian in commutator form à la Geertsen, as previously reported by Sauer. Other sum-over-states formulae are obtained via a gauge transformation, by a procedure formally allowing for a continuous translation of the origin of the mI -induced current density, analogous to those previously proposed for magnetizabilities and nuclear magnetic shielding.