Third-order interactions in symmetry-adapted perturbation theory

We present an extension of many-body symmetry-adapted perturbation theory (SAPT) by including all third-order polarization and exchange contributions obtained with the neglect of intramonomer correlation effects. The third-order polarization energy, which naturally decomposes into the induction, dispersion, and mixed, induction-dispersion components, is significantly quenched at short range by electron exchange effects. We propose a decomposition of the total third-order exchange energy into the exchange-induction, exchange-dispersion, and exchange-induction-dispersion contributions which provide the quenching for the corresponding individual polarization contributions. All components of the third-order energy have been expressed in terms of molecular integrals and orbital energies. The obtained formulas, valid for both dimer- and monomer-centered basis sets, have been implemented within the general closed-shell many-electron SAPT program. Test calculations for several small dimers have been performed and their results are presented. For dispersion-bound dimers, the inclusion of the third-order effects eliminates the need for a hybrid SAPT approach, involving supermolecular Hartree-Fock calculations. For dimers consisting of strongly polar monomers, the hybrid approach remains more accurate. It is shown that, due to the extent of the quenching, the third-order polarization effects should be included only together with their exchange counterparts. Furthermore, the latter have to be calculated exactly, rather than estimated by scaling the second-order values.     

Breakdown of the single-exchange approximation in third-order symmetry-adapted perturbation theory

We report third-order symmetry-adapted perturbation theory (SAPT) calculations for several dimers whose intermolecular interactions are dominated by induction. We demonstrate that the single-exchange approximation (SEA) employed to derive the third-order exchange-induction correction (E(exch-ind)((30))) fails to quench the attractive nature of the third-order induction (E(ind)((30))), leading to one-dimensional potential curves that become attractive rather than repulsive at short intermolecular separations. A scaling equation for (E(exch-ind)((30))), based on an exact formula for the first-order exchange correction, is introduced to approximate exchange effects beyond the SEA, and qualitatively correct potential energy curves that include third-order induction are thereby obtained. For induction-dominated systems, our results indicate that a "hybrid" SAPT approach, in which a dimer Hartree-Fock calculation is performed in order to obtain a correction for higher-order induction, is necessary not only to obtain quantitative binding energies but also to obtain qualitatively correct potential energy surfaces. These results underscore the need to develop higher-order exchange-induction formulas that go beyond the SEA.     

Intermolecular potentials based on symmetry-adapted perturbation theory with dispersion energies from time-dependent density-functional calculations

Recently, three of us have proposed a method [Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 33201 (2003)] for an accurate calculation of the dispersion energy utilizing frequency-dependent density susceptibilities of monomers obtained from time-dependent density-functional theory (DFT). In the present paper, we report numerical calculations for the helium, neon, water, and carbon dioxide dimers and show that for a wide range of intermonomer separations, including the van der Waals and short-range repulsion regions, the method provides dispersion energies with accuracies comparable to those that can be achieved using the current most sophisticated wave-function methods. If the dispersion energy is combined with (i) the electrostatic and first-order exchange interaction energies as defined in symmetry-adapted perturbation theory (SAPT) but computed using monomer Kohn-Sham (KS) determinants, and (ii) the induction energy computed using the coupled KS static response theory, (iii) the exchange-induction and exchange-dispersion energies computed using KS orbitals and orbital energies, the resulting method, denoted by SAPT(DFT), produces very accurate total interaction potentials. For the helium dimer, the only system with nearly exact benchmark values, SAPT(DFT) reproduces the interaction energy to within about 2% at the minimum and to a similar accuracy for all other distances ranging from the strongly repulsive to the asymptotic region. For the remaining systems investigated by us, the quality of the SAPT(DFT) interaction energies is so high that these energies may actually be more accurate than the best available results obtained with wave-function techniques. At the same time, SAPT(DFT) is much more computationally efficient than any method previously used for calculating the dispersion and other interaction energy components at this level of accuracy.     

Application of symmetry-adapted perturbation theory to small ionic systems

The application of symmetry-adapted perturbation theory (SAPT) to small ionic systems was investigated in the context of the accuracy of calculated interaction energies for alkali halides. Two forms of alkali halides were considered: ion pairs M(+)X(-) (M = Li, Na, K, Rb, and X = F, Cl, Br, I) and dimers (MX)(2). The influence of the order of energy correction terms included in SAPT and the effect of the so-called hybrid approach to SAPT on the accuracy of the calculated energies (such as the interaction energies in the ion pairs and the binding energies in the dimers with respect to two free monomers) were studied. The effects of the size of basis sets, combined with SAPT, on the accuracy were also established.     

Comment on symmetry-adapted perturbation theories

In a recent paper, Suzuki and I'Haya have criticized many of the proposed symmetry-adapted perturbation theories on the grounds that they are not physically adequate. We show that these criticisms are without merit.     

Frozen core and effective core potentials in symmetry-adapted perturbation theory

The application of the frozen-core approximation (FCA) and effective core potentials (ECPs) within symmetry-adapted perturbation theory (SAPT) has been investigated and implemented. Unlike in the case of conventional electronic-structure theories, the development of a frozen-core version of SAPT is not straightforward. In particular, the FCA realizations neglecting excitations from core orbitals and restricting all summation indices to valence orbitals only are no longer equivalent. It is shown that it is necessary in SAPT to keep some terms containing products of the valence orbitals of one monomer and the core orbitals of the other one in the exchange-energy components. When these terms are included or, equivalently, the "infinite-excitation-energy" approximation omitting only the excitations from the core orbitals is used, the accuracy of the frozen-core approximation in SAPT matches that obtained in supermolecular perturbational and coupled-cluster methods. If these terms are neglected, i.e., within the "index-range-restriction" approximation, several exchange corrections are significantly underestimated. When ECPs are used in SAPT, the accuracy of the interaction energies is as good as in conventional supermolecular methods, provided that the residual supermolecular Hartree-Fock term is included. We have found that only some types of ECPs can be reliably used for calculations of interaction energies both in SAPT and in supermolecular approaches. For systems containing heavy atoms, both FCA and the use of ECPs lead to very significant savings of computer time.     

Orbital relaxation and the third-order induction energy in symmetry-adapted perturbation theory

Theoretical investigations of the induction interaction between closed-shell molecules which fully account for the orbital relaxation effects are presented. Explicit expressions for the third-order induction energy in terms of molecular integrals and orbital energies are given and implemented within the sapt2008 program for symmetry-adapted perturbation theory (SAPT) calculations. Numerical investigations for the He–He, He–LiH, Ar–Ar, H₂–CO, H₂O–H₂O, and H₂O–NH₃ model dimers show that the orbital relaxation increases the third-order induction interaction by 15 to 50% at near-equilibrium geometries, with the largest effect observed for complexes involving highly polar monomers. At large intermonomer separations, the relaxed third-order induction energy perfectly recovers the difference $\delta E^{\rm HF}_{\rm int}$ between the Hartree–Fock interaction energy and the sum of the uncorrelated SAPT contributions through second order in the intermolecular interaction operator. At the near-equilibrium geometries, the sum of the relaxed third-order induction and exchange-induction energies reproduces, however, only a small fraction (6 to 15%) of $\delta E^{\rm HF}_{\rm int}$ for the nonpolar systems and about 40 to 60% for the polar ones. A comparison of the complete SAPT calculations with the coupled-cluster treatment with single, double, and noniterative triple excitations [CCSD(T)] suggests that the pure SAPT approach with all the available third-order corrections is more accurate for nonpolar systems while for the polar ones the hybrid approach including $\delta E^{\rm HF}_{\rm int}$ gives better results.     

Degenerate symmetry-adapted perturbation theory of weak interactions between closed- and open-shell monomers: application to Rydberg states of helium hydride

Symmetry-adapted perturbation theory is extended to the (quasi) degenerate, open-shell case. The new formalism is tested in calculations of the interaction energies for a helium atom in the ground state interacting with an excited hydrogen atom. It is shown that the method gives satisfactory results if the coupling with higher Rydberg states of the dimer is small, as is the case for the A²Σ⁺,B²Π,E²Π,3²Π, and 1²Δ states of HeH. For the C²Σ⁺ state convergence of the method is very slow, but it can be improved by including the n=3 states in the model space. Received: 3 June 1998 / Accepted: 9 September 1998 / Published online: 7 December 1998     

Intermolecular interaction energy of CH4 trimer by symmetry-adapted perturbation theory

The interaction energy for the cyclic CH₄ trimer is studied in terms of symmetry-adapted perturbation theory. The interaction energy around the van der Waals minimum is dominated by attractive dispersion energy, and the repulsive contribution at the smaller angle region is due to the first-order exchange energy. The total interaction energy is approximated by additive two-body components, because of a mutual cancellation between nonadditive three-body ones.     

Comments on the symmetry-adapted perturbation treatments of molecular interaction

Symmetry-adapted perturbation theories published so far are criticised. Extra conditions imposed in most of these formalisms are found to be not always physically adequate. We conclude that the formalism proposed by Hirschfelder and Silbey is the most appropriate.     

Second-order Kohn-Sham perturbation theory: correlation potential for atoms in a cavity

Second-order perturbation theory based on the Kohn-Sham Hamiltonian leads to an implicit density functional for the correlation energy E(c) (MP2), which is explicitly dependent on both occupied and unoccupied Kohn-Sham single-particle orbitals and energies. The corresponding correlation potential v(c) (MP2), which has to be evaluated by the optimized potential method, was found to be divergent in the asymptotic region of atoms, if positive-energy continuum states are included in the calculation [Facco Bonetti et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 2241 (2001)]. On the other hand, Niquet et al., [J. Chem. Phys. 118, 9504 (2003)] showed that v(c) (MP2) has the same asymptotic -alpha(2r(4)) behavior as the exact correlation potential, if the system under study has a discrete spectrum only. In this work we study v(c) (MP2) for atoms in a spherical cavity within a basis-set-free finite differences approach, ensuring a completely discrete spectrum by requiring hard-wall boundary conditions at the cavity radius. Choosing this radius sufficiently large, one can devise a numerical continuation procedure which allows to normalize v(c) (MP2) consistent with the standard choice v(c)(r-->infinity)=0 for free atoms, without modifying the potential in the chemically relevant region. An important prerequisite for the success of this scheme is the inclusion of very high-energy virtual states. Using this technique, we have calculated v(c) (MP2) for all closed-shell and spherical open-shell atoms up to argon. One finds that v(c) (MP2) reproduces the shell structure of the exact correlation potential very well but consistently overestimates the corresponding shell oscillations. In the case of spin-polarized atoms one observes a strong interrelation between the correlation potentials of the two spin channels, which is completely absent for standard density functionals. However, our results also demonstrate that E(c) (MP2) can only serve as a first step towards the construction of a suitable implicit correlation functional: The fundamental variational instability of this functional is recovered for beryllium, for which a breakdown of the self-consistent Kohn-Sham iteration is observed. Moreover, even for those atoms for which the self-consistent iteration is stable, the results indicate that the inclusion of v(c) (MP2) in the total Kohn-Sham potential does not lead to an improvement compared to the complete neglect of the correlation potential.     

Pair potential for helium from symmetry-adapted perturbation theory calculations and from supermolecular data

Symmetry-adapted perturbation theory (SAPT) was applied to the helium dimer for interatomic separations R from 3 to 12 bohrs. The first-order interaction energy and the bulk of the second-order contribution were obtained using Gaussian geminal basis sets and are converged to about 0.1 mK near the minimum and for larger R. The remaining second-order contributions available in the SAPT suite of codes were computed using very large orbital basis sets, up to septuple-zeta quality, augmented by diffuse and midbond functions. The accuracy reached at this level was better than 1 mK in the same region. All the remaining components of the interaction energy were computed using the full configuration interaction method in bases up to sextuple-zeta quality. The latter components, although contributing only 1% near the minimum, have the largest uncertainty of about 10 mK in this region. The total interaction energy at R=5.6 bohrs is -11.000+/-0.011 K. For R< or =6.5 bohrs, the supermolecular (SM) interaction energies computed by us recently turned out to be slightly more accurate. Therefore, we have combined the SM results for R< or =6.5 bohrs with the SAPT results from 7.0 to 12 bohrs to fit analytic functions for the potential and for its error bars. The potential fit uses the best available van der Waals constants C(6) through C(16), including C(11), C(13), and C(15), and is believed to be the best current representation of the Born-Oppenheimer (BO) potential for helium. Using these fits, we found that the BO potential for the helium dimer exhibits the well depth D(e)=11.006+/-0.004 K, the equilibrium distance R(e)=5.608+/-0.012 bohrs, and supports one bound state for (4)He(2) with the dissociation energy D(0)=1.73+/-0.04 mK, and the average interatomic separation R=45.6+/-0.5 A.     

Kohn-Sham perturbation theory: simple solution to variational instability of second order correlation energy functional

The orbital-dependent correlation energy functional resulting from second order Kohn-Sham perturbation theory leads to atomic correlation potentials with correct shell structure and asymptotic behavior. The absolute magnitude of the exact correlation potential, however, is greatly overestimated. In addition, this functional is variationally instable, which shows up for systems with nearly degenerate highest occupied and lowest unoccupied levels like Be. In this contribution we examine the simplest resummation of the Kohn-Sham perturbation series which has the potential to resolve both the inaccuracy and the instability problem of the second order expression. This resummation includes only the hole-hole terms of the Epstein-Nesbet series of diagrams, which has the advantage that the resulting functional is computationally as efficient as the pure second order expression. The hole-hole Epstein-Nesbet functional is tested for a number of atoms and ions. It is found to reproduce correlation and ground state energies with an accuracy comparable to that of state-of-the-art generalized gradient approximations. The correlation potential, on the other hand, is dramatically improved compared to that obtained from generalized gradient approximations. The same applies to all quantities directly related to the potential, as, for instance, Kohn-Sham eigenvalues and excitation energies. Most importantly, however, the hole-hole Epstein-Nesbet functional turned out to be variationally stable for all neutral as well as all singly and doubly ionized atoms considered so far, including the case of Be.     

Equation of state based on the weeks-chandler-andersen perturbation theory

An equation of state based on the Weeks-Chandler-Andersen (WCA) perturbation theory utilizing the simplified random-phase approximation (RPA) term is p of state is applied successfully to calculate the P-V-T relationship for a spherical molecule, argon.For nonspherical molecules, the effects of anisotropic interactions are treated empirically. The calculated P-V-T relationships and saturated properties for nonspherical and nonpolar molecules agree well with experimental data. The potential parameters for nonpolar substances are well correlated with the acentric factors.     

Rapid computation of intermolecular interactions in molecular and ionic clusters: self-consistent polarization plus symmetry-adapted perturbation theory

A method that we have recently introduced for rapid computation of intermolecular interaction energies is reformulated and subjected to further tests. The method employs monomer-based self-consistent field calculations with an electrostatic embedding designed to capture many-body polarization (the "XPol" procedure), augmented by pairwise symmetry-adapted perturbation theory (SAPT) to capture dispersion and exchange interactions along with any remaining induction effects. A rigorous derivation of the XPol+SAPT methodology is presented here, which demonstrates that the method is systematically improvable, and moreover introduces some additional intermolecular interactions as compared to the more heuristic derivation that was presented previously. Applications to various non-covalent complexes and clusters are presented, including geometry optimizations and one-dimensional potential energy scans. The performance of the XPol+SAPT methodology in its present form (based on second-order intermolecular perturbation theory and neglecting intramolecular electron correlation) is qualitatively acceptable across a wide variety of systems-and quantitatively quite good in certain cases-but the quality of the results is rather sensitive to the choice of one-particle basis set. Basis sets that work well for dispersion-bound systems offer less-than-optimal performance for clusters dominated by induction and electrostatic interactions, and vice versa. A compromise basis set is identified that affords good results for both induction and dispersion interactions, although this favorable performance ultimately relies on error cancellation, as in traditional low-order SAPT. Suggestions for future improvements to the methodology are discussed.