Direct configuration interaction with a reference state composed of many reference configurations

The configuration interaction method where a single reference state is composed of a linear combination of reference configurations is analyzed in detail. In this method single and double replacements are constructed by applying annihilation and creation operators on the reference state. The analysis is based on the recently derived factorization of the direct CI coupling coefficients into internal and external parts. Using the internal coupling coefficients the integrals are transformed to new entities which are used in the diagonalization step. This two-step procedure differs significantly from the usual straightforward one-step direct CI procedure. A number of operations analysis shows that calculations with the present method should be feasible even with a large number of reference configurations in the reference state. Based on first-order perturbation theory the accuracy of the method is predicted to be close to the accuracy obtained with the usual CI method with many reference configurations.     

SCF MO CI perturbation calculations of inner shell and valence shell vertical ionization potentials

A CI method for calculating inner and valence shell vertical ionization potentials is presented. It is based on ab initio SCF MO calculations for the neutral closedshell ground state followed by CI perturbation calculations for the ground and ion states including all spin and symmetry adapted singly and doubly excited configurations with respect to the main configurations of the state of interest. The state energy is computed by performing a CI calculation for a set of selected configurations, and then adding the contributions of the remaining configurations as estimated by second order Brillouin-Wigner perturbation theory. The use of the same set of MO's for all states together with the CI perturbation method makes the method rather rapid. The numerical results are, in spite of the limited Gaussian basis sets used, in good agreement with experiment.     

Individualized configuration selection in CI calculations with subsequent energy extrapolation

A configuration selection method for CI calculations is discussed and applied in which the energy lowering produced in a secular equation by the addition of a given test species to a series of dominant configurations is used as an ordering parameter. Configurations with energy lowerings below a given energy cut-off value are not included in the final secular equations but instead a method of estimating the combined effect of the neglected species on the corresponding non-selected CI results is developed. The influence of the choice of main configurations used in the selection process is given close examination as well as the importance of the MO basis employed in the treatment as a whole; in the latter case a non-iterative procedure for obtaining approximate natural orbitals for such calculations is suggested. The resulting configuration selection procedure is equally applicable to all types of electronic states in any nuclear geometry and the results of the associated CI calculations are seen to be essentially equivalent to a complete treatment in which all single- and double-excitation species with respect to aseries of dominant configurations in a given state are included. Senior U.S. Scientist Awardee of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, on leave from the Department of Chemistry, University of Nebraska.     

Ab initio SCF-CI studies of the intermolecular interaction between two hydrogen molecules near the Van der Waals minimum

SCF-CI calculations have been used to study the intermolecular energy between two hydrogen molecules in four different geometrical configurations. The CI matrix was diagonalized using perturbation techniques. The importance of the perturbation expansion order upon the intermolecular energy could therefore be studied. The wave function includes all singly and doubly excited configurations. The natural orbitals have been determined and their relative importance on the intermolecular energy is considered.     

Energy continuity in multi-reference CI calculations

Configuration interaction calculations based on changing numbers of reference configurations at different geometries have a theoretical inconsistency which can affect the continuity of a calculated potential surface. As the number of reference configurations is increased for adjacent points on a potential curve (e.g. to describe molecular dissociation), the CI space can increase by large quantum jumps. Using the MRD-CI method of Buenker and Peyerimhoff and coworkers, we give several criteria which help to ensure energy continuity across these changes in CI space, and demonstrate these criteria for the hydrogen fluoride potential curve.     

Role of the configuration interaction in the CNDO/S calculation of optical rotatory strengths

The rotatory strengths calculated directly by the CNDO/S method exhibit a pronounced dependence on the size of configuration interaction (CI). In order to elucidate the role of highly excited configurations in such calculations the perturbation theory is employed. It is shown that the restriction of the CI size to 20–40 may be quite inadequate in some cases. The calculations of rotatory strengths of several optically active molecules containing carbonyl and amide chromophores has shown that the best results can be obtained for half of full CI but sometimes it is possible to restrict the CI size to 100 configurations. The agreement with experiment for all molecules considered is satisfactory.     

GRECP/MRD‐CI calculations on the Hg atom and HgH molecule

Multireference single‐ and double‐excitation configuration interaction (MRD‐CI) calculations of transition energies for the Hg atom and spectroscopic constants for the HgH molecule are carried out with the generalized relativistic effective core potential (GRECP) method. A new selection criterium for the reference configurations is discussed. The calculated spectroscopic constants are compared with experimental data and results of calculations of other groups. Improvement of accuracy is mainly observed for bond lengths from the GRECP/MRD‐CI calculations (without applying the T = 0 correction) with respect to the results of other groups. Analysis of the quality of the approximations employed is carried out. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Quantum Chem, 2002     

Selected configuration interaction with truncation energy error and application to the Ne atom

Selected configuration interaction (SCI) for atomic and molecular electronic structure calculations is reformulated in a general framework encompassing all CI methods. The linked cluster expansion is used as an intermediate device to approximate CI coefficients B(K) of disconnected configurations (those that can be expressed as products of combinations of singly and doubly excited ones) in terms of CI coefficients of lower-excited configurations where each K is a linear combination of configuration-state-functions (CSFs) over all degenerate elements of K. Disconnected configurations up to sextuply excited ones are selected by Brown's energy formula, Delta E(K) = (E-H(KK))B(K)2/(1-B(K)2), with B(K) determined from coefficients of singly and doubly excited configurations. The truncation energy error from disconnected configurations, Delta E(dis), is approximated by the sum of Delta E(K)s of all discarded Ks. The remaining (connected) configurations are selected by thresholds based on natural orbital concepts. Given a model CI space M, a usual upper bound E(S) is computed by CI in a selected space S, and E(M) = E(S) + Delta E(dis) + delta E, where delta E is a residual error which can be calculated by well-defined sensitivity analyses. An SCI calculation on Ne ground state featuring 1077 orbitals is presented. Convergence to within near spectroscopic accuracy (0.5 cm(-1)) is achieved in a model space M of 1.4 x 10(9) CSFs (1.1 x 10(12) determinants) containing up to quadruply excited CSFs. Accurate energy contributions of quintuples and sextuples in a model space of 6.5 x 10(12) CSFs are obtained. The impact of SCI on various orbital methods is discussed. Since Delta E(dis) can readily be calculated for very large basis sets without the need of a CI calculation, it can be used to estimate the orbital basis incompleteness error. A method for precise and efficient evaluation of E(S) is taken up in a companion paper.     

Configuration interaction calculations on the 2P ground state of boron atom and C+ using Slater orbitals

Configuration Interaction (CI) calculations on the ground ²P state of boron atom are presented using a wave function expansion constructed with L‐S eigenfunction configurations of s‐, p‐, and d‐Slater orbitals. Two procedures of optimization of the orbital exponents have been investigated. First, CI(SD) calculations including few types of configurations and full optimization of the orbital exponents led to the energy ?24.63704575 a.u. Second, full‐CI (FCI) calculations including a large number of configuration types using a fixed set of orbital exponents for all configurations gave ?24.63405222 a.u. using the basis [4s3p2d] and 2157 configurations, and to an improved result of ?24.64013999 a.u. for 3957 configurations and a [5s4p3d] basis. This last result is better than earlier calculations of Schaefer and Harris (Phys Rev 1968, 167, 67), and compares well with the recent ones from Froese Fischer and Bunge (personal communication). In addition, using the same wave functions, CI calculations of the boron isoelectronic ion C⁺ have been performed obtaining an energy of ?37.41027598 a.u. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Quantum Chem, 2011     

A study of the convergence in iterative natural orbital procedures

A series of five different Iterative Natural Orbital (INO ) procedures are tested for the ground state of water and are compared on the basis of their respective convergence properties. The choice of configuration space employed in these methods is shown to be a key factor in determining the results of such calculations. If the CI space is generated by taking all single excitations with respect to a series of dominant or reference configurations, it is concluded that the practice of varying such generating species at each iteration is highly desirable. In general the choice of the configuration space is found to be much more important than the attainment of strict NO convergence, whereby experience indicates that inclusion of all singly and doubly excited configurations (or at least a select subset thereof) relative to a series of dominant configurations provides the most efficient means of approximating the true NOS of a given system within the general INO framework.     

Reducing CAS-SDCI space. Using selected spaces in configuration interaction calculations in an efficient way

A new method is presented, which allows an important reduction of the size of some Configuration Interaction (CI) matrices. Starting from a Complete Active Space (CAS), the numerous configurations that have a small weight in the CAS wave function are eliminated. When excited configurations (e.g., singly and doubly excited) are added to the reference space, the resulting MR-SDCI space is reduced in the same proportion as compared with the full CAS-SDCI. A set of active orbitals is chosen, but some selection of the most relevant excitations is performed because not all the possible excitations act as SDCI generators. Thanks to a new addressing technique, the computational time is drastically reduced, because the new addressing of the selected active space is as efficient as the addressing of the CAS. The presentation of the method is followed by two test calculations on the N(2) and HCCH molecules. For the N(2) the FCI results are taken as a benchmark reference. The outer valence ionization potentials of HCCH are compared to the experimental values. Both examples allow to test the accuracy of the MR-SDCI compared to that of the corresponding CAS-SDCI, despite the noticeable reduction of the CI space. The algorithm is suitable for the dressing techniques that allow for the correction of the size-extensivity error. The corrected results are also shown and discussed.     

Hylleraas–Configuration Interaction calculations on the 11S ground state of helium atom

Hylleraas–Configuration Interaction (Hy–CI) calculations on the ground 1¹S state of helium atom are presented using s-, p-, d-, and f-Slater orbitals of both real and complex form. Techniques of construction of adapted configurations, optimization of the orbital exponents, and structure of the wave function expansion are explored. A new method to evaluate the two-electron kinetic energy integrals occurring in the Hy–CI method has been tested in this work and compared with other methods. The non-relativistic Hy–CI energy values are ≈10 picohartree accurate, about 2.2 × 10^?6 cm^?1. The Hy–CI calculations are compared with Configuration Interaction (CI) and Hylleraas (Hy) calculations employing the same orbital basis set, same computer code, and same computer machines. The computational required times are reported.     

Cumulative BK approximation as a method to select configurations for CI calculations of transition energies

A cumulative B_k approximation is examined as a method to select configurations for CI calculations of transition energies where all the matrix elements are computed (full CI). The results obtained by this approach indicate that the transition energies are comparable to the ones obtained at the full CI level. Even for truncation errors of 1 mhartree, the transition energies differ from the full CI ones by less than 0.1 eV.     

Multireference configuration interaction calculations for positronium halides

Multireference configuration interaction (MRCI) calculations of the positronium halides, PsF, PsCl, PsBr, and PsI, are carried out, to give positron ionization energies, positronium binding energies, and two-photon annihilation rates. All CI calculations consider only valence correlation effect with a frozen-core approximation, and use the orbitals with angular momentum up to 8. To incorporate the effects of many-body correlations in the energies and two-photon annihilation rates, the MRCI calculations are repeated with increasing reference configurations, and the full CI limits of these energies and annihilation rates are estimated. The contribution from orbitals having angular momentum greater than 8 to those values is also estimated. Relative to our previous single reference CI calculations, many-body correlation effects significantly increase the positron ionization energies, positronium binding energies, and two-photon annihilation rates. The structures of the positronium halides are also discussed.     

Theoretical study of the vertical electronic spectrum of O2: Mixing of valence and Rydberg states

All-valence-electron CM calculations are reported for a large number of electronic states of O₂ at the ground state equilibrium bond length. The configuration subspaces considered include all single and double excitations with respect to a series of the most important terms in the expansion of each state. The importance of the choice of such reference configurations as well as of the use of approximate natural orbitals in these calculations is discussed Mixing at Rydberg and valence states is observed in numerous cases and the significance of this phenomenon in the interpretation of the electrons spectrum of this system is considered.     

Ground-state correlation energy of Ne

A series of basis sets and configuration interaction (CI ) wave functions, both of which were constructed so as to systematically approach to the complete set limit and the full CI limit, were used for the ground state of Ne. These calculations yielded an estimated correlation energy of ?0.3891 au, which is 99.6% of a recent theoretical estimate of ?0.3905 au. The CI value, ?0.3821 au, was obtained by SDCI calculation with seven reference configurations by using Slater-type orbitals (STO s) from s to h functions. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

The ground state of the CN+ ion: a multi-reference Ci study

An extensive configuration-interaction study employing an AO basis including f polarization functions is undertaken for the ¹Σ⁺ and ³Π states of the CN⁺ ion at their respective equilibrium geometries. The importance of a multi-reference set for configuration generation is thereby exemplified in detail; all calculations in which the reference configurations contribute more than 90^~c to the final CI vectors (and similar amounts to both states) place the ¹Σ⁺ state lower than ³Π by ΔE_e = 0.10–0.20 eV at all stages. i.e. for a selected (large) subset, after extrapolation to the entire MRD CI space of up to 176000 configurations, and also at the estimated full CI level of treatment.     

Approaching the full CI limit with MRD CI calculations: The X 1A1 state of water with a double-zeta basis

Results of MRD CI calculations with varying numbers of reference configurations for the water molecule employing a double-zeta basis set are compared with the corresponding full CI results of Harrison and Handy as well as with those of other methods. For the three geometries considered a highly uniform percentage (99.8±0.1%) of the available correlation energy in this AO basis is obtained by solving secular equations in the 13–15000 range, i.e. only 5% of the full CI space. Extrapolation of the full CI energy through the use of various correction formulae is found to be unreliable for large bond distances, although such an approach is successful at the equilibrium geometry.