Orbital-orthogonality constraints and basis-set optimization

A new procedure is presented for introducing arbitrary orbital-orthogonality constraints in the variational optimization of otherwise nonorthogonal multiconfiguration electronic wave functions. It is based on suitable analytical changes to the expressions for the first and second derivatives of the electronic energy with respect to the independent variational parameters, and can be applied in the presence of symmetry constraints. It is tested using a second-derivative optimization procedure, the Optimized Basis Set -- Generalized Multiconfiguration Spin-Coupled (OBS-GMCSC) approach, that can treat basis-function exponential parameters as variational parameters, to be optimized simultaneously with configuration, spin-coupling, and orbital coefficients. This enables rigorous optimization of basis-set exponential parameters even for fully orthogonal multiconfiguration wave functions. Test calculations are carried out, with optimized even-tempered basis sets, on Li(2) and on the CH radical. For the latter, special attention is paid to the electronic spin density at the nuclei.     

Generalization of the Optimized-Basis-Set Multi-Configuration Spin-Coupled method for the ab initio calculation of atomic and molecular electronic wave functions

An ab initio procedure for the calculation of atomic and molecular electronic wave functions, the Optimized-Basis-Set Multi-Configuration Spin-Coupled (OBS-MCSC) method, is generalized by introducing a separate linear combination of spin functions for each configuration, turning it into the OBS-GMCSC method. The ability to use a second-order minimization procedure in the computation of the wave function is maintained through appropriate generalization of the analytic expressions for the first and second derivatives of the energy with respect to the optimization parameters, as is the optional inclusion among the latter of the basis-function exponential parameters. The generalization, a variational improvement of the wave function, strengthens the connection with classical VB theory, of which the method can now be considered an optimized-orbitals variant, while maintaining the link with single-configuration Spin-Coupled theory, of which it may still be considered a multiconfiguration extension. The method can also be viewed as a nonorthogonal variant of the MCSCF approach. To demonstrate its practical feasibility and usefulness, the OBS-GMCSC method is applied to a study of the electronic structure and electron affinity of boron. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Newton–Raphson optimization of the explicitly correlated Gaussian functions for calculations of the ground state of the helium atom

Explicitly correlated Gaussian functions have been used in variational calculations on the ground state of the helium atom. The major problem of this application, as well as in other applications of the explicitly correlated Gaussian functions to compute electronic energies of atoms and molecules, is the optimization of the nonlinear parameters involved in the variational wave function. An effective Newton–Raphson optimization procedure is proposed based on analytic first and second derivatives of the variational functional with respect to the Gaussian exponents. The algorithm of the method and its computational implementation is described. The application of the method to the helium atom shows that the Newton–Raphson procedure leads to a good convergence of the optimization process. © 1994 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Computing the energy of a water molecule using multideterminants: a simple, efficient algorithm

Quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) methods such as variational Monte Carlo and fixed node diffusion Monte Carlo depend heavily on the quality of the trial wave function. Although Slater-Jastrow wave functions are the most commonly used variational ansatz in electronic structure, more sophisticated wave functions are critical to ascertaining new physics. One such wave function is the multi-Slater-Jastrow wave function which consists of a Jastrow function multiplied by the sum of Slater determinants. In this paper we describe a method for working with these wave functions in QMC codes that is easy to implement, efficient both in computational speed as well as memory, and easily parallelized. The computational cost scales quadratically with particle number making this scaling no worse than the single determinant case and linear with the total number of excitations. Additionally, we implement this method and use it to compute the ground state energy of a water molecule.     

The effect of confinement on the electronic energy and polarizability of a hydrogen molecular ion

The electronic energy and the polarizability of a confined hydrogen molecular ion in the ground state and the first excited state, for cavities of different volumes, are calculated using the variational method. In the treatment adopted an alternative molecular wave function is introduced with only one variational parameter and based on wave functions used for confined atoms. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Perturbation theories and wave functions for calculation of electronic polarizabilities application to DNA bases

Three different forms of perturbation theories, variational perturbation, finite perturbation and second-order, are evaluated regarding their value for calculation of electronic polarizabilities of small and intermediate size molecules. It is concluded that with the practical constraint of a small basis set the variational perturbation method is the most promising alternative for calculation of polarizabilities. For several small molecules, our calculated polarizabilities indicate that both IEHT and ab initio wave functions give values in close agreement with each other. Variational perturbation calculations of polarizabilities with IEHT wave functions also include the DNA bases.     

The use of explicitly correlated,partially antisymmetric wave functions in atomic and molecular calculations

Trial wave functions, written as the sum of a configuration interaction expansion and an explicitly correlated term which is not antisymmetric, are proposed for use in calculating the electronic properties of atoms and molecules. A variational principle, modified to allow the use for such partially antisymmetric wave functions, is developed. It is shown that the consequences of partial antisymmetry on calculated expectation values can be estimated. The method avoids difficult three-electron integrals which arise in other theories.     

Variational Monte Carlo calculations for some cations and anions of the first‐row atoms using explicitly correlated wave functions

The variational Monte Carlo method is applied to calculate ground‐state energies of some cations and anions of the first‐row atoms. Accurate values providing between 80 and 90% of the correlation energy are obtained. Explicitly correlated wave functions including up to 42 variational parameters are used. The nondynamic correlation due to the 2s ? 2p near degeneracy effect is included by using a multideterminant wave function. The variational free parameters have been fixed by minimizing the energy that has shown to be a more convenient functional than the variance of the local energy, which is the most commonly employed method in variational Monte Carlo calculations. The energies obtained improve previous works using similar wave functions. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.; DOI 10.1002/qua.10125     

Molecular structure calculations: a unified quantum mechanical description of electrons and nuclei using explicitly correlated Gaussian functions and the global vector representation

We elaborate on the theory for the variational solution of the Schro?dinger equation of small atomic and molecular systems without relying on the Born-Oppenheimer paradigm. The all-particle Schro?dinger equation is solved in a numerical procedure using the variational principle, Cartesian coordinates, parameterized explicitly correlated Gaussian functions with polynomial prefactors, and the global vector representation. As a result, non-relativistic energy levels and wave functions of few-particle systems can be obtained for various angular momentum, parity, and spin quantum numbers. A stochastic variational optimization of the basis function parameters facilitates the calculation of accurate energies and wave functions for the ground and some excited rotational-(vibrational-)electronic states of H(2) (+) and H(2), three bound states of the positronium molecule, Ps(2), and the ground and two excited states of the (7)Li atom.     

New bosonic excitation operators in many-electron wave functions

New excitation operators which have perfect bosonic symmetry are constructed for many-electron wave functions by regarding the system of many electrons as that of many species of bosons. Any electronic configurations can be generated by the new bosonic “void” operators. A coherent state is constructed with the bosonic operators and is adopted as a trial function for the time-dependent variational principle. The equation of motion which has exactly the same form as Hamilton's equation in classical mechanics is obtained with the complex variational parameters, the number of which is equal to the number of electrons. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Int J Quant Chem 67: 71–75, 1998     

Excited electronic state calculations by the transcorrelated variational Monte Carlo method: application to a helium atom

We have implemented the excited electronic state calculations for a helium atom by the transcorrelated variational Monte Carlo (TC-VMC) method. In this method, Jastrow-Slater-type wave function is efficiently optimized not only for the Jastrow factor but also for the Slater determinant. Since the formalism for the TC-VMC method is based on the variance minimization, excited states as well as the ground state calculations are feasible. It is found that both the first and the second excitation energies given by TC-VMC are much closer to the experimental data than those given by the variational Monte Carlo method with using the Hartree-Fock orbitals. The successful results in the TC-VMC method are considered to be due to the nodal optimization of the wave functions.     

An open‐source framework for analyzing N‐electron dynamics. II. Hybrid density functional theory/configuration interaction methodology

In this contribution, we extend our framework for analyzing and visualizing correlated many‐electron dynamics to non‐variational, highly scalable electronic structure method. Specifically, an explicitly time‐dependent electronic wave packet is written as a linear combination of N‐electron wave functions at the configuration interaction singles (CIS) level, which are obtained from a reference time‐dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) calculation. The procedure is implemented in the open‐source Python program det CI@ORBKIT, which extends the capabilities of our recently published post‐processing toolbox (Hermann et al., J. Comput. Chem. 2016, 37, 1511). From the output of standard quantum chemistry packages using atom‐centered Gaussian‐type basis functions, the framework exploits the multideterminental structure of the hybrid TDDFT/CIS wave packet to compute fundamental one‐electron quantities such as difference electronic densities, transient electronic flux densities, and transition dipole moments. The hybrid scheme is benchmarked against wave function data for the laser‐driven state selective excitation in LiH. It is shown that all features of the electron dynamics are in good quantitative agreement with the higher‐level method provided a judicious choice of functional is made. Broadband excitation of a medium‐sized organic chromophore further demonstrates the scalability of the method. In addition, the time‐dependent flux densities unravel the mechanistic details of the simulated charge migration process at a glance. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Méthode des Biorbitales: Application Préliminaire au Calcul de l'Energie de l'Etat Fondamental de l'Atome de Beryllium

The ground-state electronic energy of Be is calculated using the method of biorbitals (SCF –BI ). In this method the wave function is represented by an antisymmetrized product of identical pair functions. The basic set used to develop the biorbitals consists of the Watson s and p orbitals. The pair function is presumed to describe a singlet pair state. The energy associated with this function is minimized using a steepest descent procedure. A value of 0.0414 a.u. was found for the correlation energy, which is 44% of the total correlation energy. The SCF –BI method is compared with the CI method. The relationships are established between the expansion coefficients of both methods. The occupation numbers of orbitals are calculated.     

Three stages of optimization and simple correlated wave functions

It is advocated to carry out an optimization procedure, which is based upon the variational method, in such a way that the optimum values of the variational parameters are expressed as functions of physical constants, such as the atomic number, Z. The three stages involved in this treatment are illustrated by the optimization of nine correlated wave functions, which describe the ground states of atomic two-electron systems. An analysis of the Z-expansions of the total energies associated with these functions leads to the concept of a class of variational functions. The performances of functions belonging to the same class differ only marginally, especially at larger values of Z. Consequently, the concept of class may be used to bring some order in the plethora of variational functions. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Full optimization of Jastrow-Slater wave functions with application to the first-row atoms and homonuclear diatomic molecules

We pursue the development and application of the recently introduced linear optimization method for determining the optimal linear and nonlinear parameters of Jastrow-Slater wave functions in a variational Monte Carlo framework. In this approach, the optimal parameters are found iteratively by diagonalizing the Hamiltonian matrix in the space spanned by the wave function and its first-order derivatives, making use of a strong zero-variance principle. We extend the method to optimize the exponents of the basis functions, simultaneously with all the other parameters, namely, the Jastrow, configuration state function, and orbital parameters. We show that the linear optimization method can be thought of as a so-called augmented Hessian approach, which helps explain the robustness of the method and permits us to extend it to minimize a linear combination of the energy and the energy variance. We apply the linear optimization method to obtain the complete ground-state potential energy curve of the C(2) molecule up to the dissociation limit and discuss size consistency and broken spin-symmetry issues in quantum Monte Carlo calculations. We perform calculations for the first-row atoms and homonuclear diatomic molecules with fully optimized Jastrow-Slater wave functions, and we demonstrate that molecular well depths can be obtained with near chemical accuracy quite systematically at the diffusion Monte Carlo level for these systems.     

Correlated geminal wave function for molecules: an efficient resonating valence bond approach

We show that a simple correlated wave function, obtained by applying a Jastrow correlation term to an antisymmetrized geminal power, based upon singlet pairs between electrons, is particularly suited for describing the electronic structure of molecules, yielding a large amount of the correlation energy. The remarkable feature of this approach is that, in principle, several resonating valence bonds can be dealt simultaneously with a single determinant, at a computational cost growing with the number of electrons similar to more conventional methods, such as Hartree-Fock or density functional theory. Moreover we describe an extension of the stochastic reconfiguration method, which was recently introduced for the energy minimization of simple atomic wave functions. Within this extension the atomic positions can be considered as further variational parameters, which can be optimized together with the remaining ones. The method is applied to several molecules from Li(2) to benzene by obtaining total energies, bond lengths and binding energies comparable with much more demanding multiconfiguration schemes.     

Variational method for the calculation of the vibrational structure of the electronic spectra of polyatomic molecules. I

A method is proposed to calculate the vibrational structures of the electronic spectra of polyatomic molecules based on the variational solution of the vibrational problem in the excited state with the vibrational wave functions of the ground state as basis set. The electrono-vibrational problem leads to an evaluated and diagonalized variational matrix. The elements of the variational matrix have a simple form which is easily evaluated, has a clear physical meaning and is directly interconnected with observed spectral effects. This allows preliminary estimation of spectral phenomena and correction of the molecular model to take account of experimental results. The use of contemporary methods of diagonalization of the variational matrix, which possesses a characteristic structure, facilitates a tenfold increase in the speed of the method in comparison with traditional methods.K. A. Timiryazev Agricultural Academy. Translated from Zhurnal Strukturnoi Khimii, Vol. 34, No. 1, pp. 141–148, January–February, 1993.     

Configuration-interaction energy derivatives in a fully variational formulation

A configuration-interaction energy function (Lagrange) which is variational in all variables, including the orbital rotational parameters, is constructed. When this Lagrangian is used for obtaining configuration-interaction derivatives, all the important simplifications which occur for derivatives of variational wave functions carry over in a straightforward way. In particular, the state and orbital rotational response parameters obey the 2n+1 rule and the Lagrange multipliers obey the somewhat stronger 2n+2 rule. The simplifications which are normally obtained by invoking the Handy-Schaefer technique are automatically incorporated to all orders. Simple expressions for energy derivatives up to third order are presented. The relationship between the numerical errors in the variational parameters and the errors in the calculated energy derivatives is discussed.     

Static and dynamic first- and second-order properties by variational wave functions

The problem of the evaluation of first- and second-order energies by the use of arbitrary variational wave functions is examined in detail for time-independent perturbations as well as for time-dependent perturbations. By using a compact formalism the general formulae to be used for the case of a fully optimized set of variational parameters are readily obtained and the most prominent features are examined. The generality of the approach is tested by showing how some widely used methods are obtained by using particular types of variational wave functions. The case of incompletely optimized sets of variational parameters is examined examined extensively and several approaches at different levels of approximation are proposed. Emphasis is put upon the importance of considering, in the calculation of higher-order energies, the variational parameters which may be of negligible importance, and thus often neglected, in the absence of perturbations.     

Theory and mechanism of electron transfer in a condensed medium at high temperatures with allowance for change in vibrational frequencies

An expression for electron transfer rate has been obtained through the solution of a time wave equation by the variational method by defining the wave function as a linear combination of functions corresponding to electron localization on the donor and on the acceptor. A dependence of electron transfer on temperature, on the electronic and vibrational characteristics of the system has been derived. An activation energy temperature-variation effect has been obtained. It has been proved that many-electron transfers are impossible.