where n represents the chosen adiabatic surface. The last equation is derived using the Hellmann-Feynman theorem. The brackets show that the integral is done only over the quantum degrees of freedom. Choosing only one adiabatic surface is an excellent approximation if the difference between the adiabatic surfaces is large for energetically accessible regions of R . When this is not the case, the effect of the other states become important. This effect is incorporated in the surface hopping algorithm by considering the wavefunction of the quantum degrees of freedom at time t as an expansion in the adiabatic basis: