Symmetry 2010, 2, 1485-1509; doi:10.3390/sym2031485 OPEN ACCESS symmetry ISSN 2073-8994 www.mdpi.com/journal/symmetry Article On the Harmonic Oscillator Model of Electron Delocalization (HOMED) Index and its Application to Heteroatomic π-Electron Systems Ewa D. Raczyñska 1, *, Małgorzata Hallman 1, Katarzyna Kolczyñska 2 and Tomasz M. Stêpniewski 2 1 Department of Chemistry, Warsaw University of Life Sciences (SGGW), ul. Nowoursynowska 159c, 02-776 Warszawa, Poland 2 Interdisciplinary Department of Biotechnology, Warsaw University of Life Sciences (SGGW), ul. Nowoursynowska 166, 02-776 Warszawa, Poland * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail:
[email protected]; Tel.: +48-22-59-37623; Fax: +49-22-59-37635. Received: 23 April 2010; in revised form: 19 May 2010 / Accepted: 7 July 2010 / Published: 12 July 2010 Abstract: The HOMA (Harmonic Oscillator Model of Aromaticity) index, reformulated in 1993, has been very often applied to describe π-electron delocalization for mono- and polycyclic π-electron systems. However, different measures of π-electron delocalization were employed for the CC, CX, and XY bonds, and this index seems to be inappropriate for compounds containing heteroatoms. In order to describe properly various resonance effects (σ-π hyperconjugation, n-π conjugation, π-π conjugation, and aromaticity) possible for heteroatomic π-electron systems, some modifications, based on the original HOMA idea, were proposed and tested for simple DFT structures containing C, N, and O atoms. An abbreviation HOMED was used for the modified index. Keywords: geometry-based index; π -electron delocalization; σ - π hyperconjugation; n-π conjugation; π-π conjugation; aromaticity; heteroatomic compounds; DFT 1.