On the internally contracted multireference CI method with full contraction

The configuration interaction (CI ) method where the efficiency of the generators of the unitary group is most fully exploited is the internally contracted multireference CI method. In the most recent version of this method the semi-internal configurations were kept uncontracted, which means that the number of configurations can still be quite large. In the present study the necessary formulas are derived for the case where the semi-internal states are also contracted. The highest density matrix that appears in these formulas is of order 5, and the computational treatment of this large matrix is discussed in detail.     

Molecule intrinsic minimal basis sets. I. Exact resolution of ab initio optimized molecular orbitals in terms of deformed atomic minimal-basis orbitals

A method is presented for expressing the occupied self-consistent-field (SCF) orbitals of a molecule exactly in terms of chemically deformed atomic minimal-basis-set orbitals that deviate as little as possible from free-atom SCF minimal-basis orbitals. The molecular orbitals referred to are the exact SCF orbitals, the free-atom orbitals referred to are the exact atomic SCF orbitals, and the formulation of the deformed "quasiatomic minimal-basis-sets" is independent of the calculational atomic orbital basis used. The resulting resolution of molecular orbitals in terms of quasiatomic minimal basis set orbitals is therefore intrinsic to the exact molecular wave functions. The deformations are analyzed in terms of interatomic contributions. The Mulliken population analysis is formulated in terms of the quasiatomic minimal-basis orbitals. In the virtual SCF orbital space the method leads to a quantitative ab initio formulation of the qualitative model of virtual valence orbitals, which are useful for calculating electron correlation and the interpretation of reactions. The method is applicable to Kohn-Sham density functional theory orbitals and is easily generalized to valence MCSCF orbitals.     

Toward more efficient CCSD(T) calculations of intermolecular interactions in model hydrogen-bonded and stacked dimers

Interaction energies of the model H-bonded complexes, the formamide and formamidine dimers, as well as the stacked formaldehyde and ethylene dimers are calculated by the coupled cluster CCSD(T) method. These systems serve as a model for H-bonded and stacking interactions, typical in molecules participating in biological systems. We use the optimized virtual orbital space (OVOS) technique, by which the dimension of the space of virtual orbitals in coupled cluster CCSD(T) calculations can be significantly reduced. We demonstrate that when the space of virtual orbitals is reduced to 50% of the full space, which means reducing computational demands by 1 order of magnitude, the interaction energies for both H-bonded and stacked dimers are affected by no more than 0.1 kcal/mol. This error is much smaller than the error when interaction energies are calculated using limited basis sets.     

Explaining the “large numbers” via a unified (classical) theory of strong and gravitational interactions

An advantage of modified virtual orbitals of Hartree–Fock method is discussed in the calculation of the second-order perturbation energy. All the modified virtual orbitals can be fitted for the intermediate virtual states in the perturbation expansion, only if the molecular orbitals are expanded in terms of infinite basis functions and the set of molecular orbitals is infinite and complete. If the molecular orbitals are expanded in terms of finite basis functions, only the modified virtual orbitals with lower energies are appropriate to describe the intermediate virtual states, but the modified virtual orbitals with higher energies become inadequate. To explain the usefulness of the modified virtual orbitals, the calculation by the modified Hartree–Fock method without CI are compared with the calculation by the traditional Hartree–Fock method with complete CI .     

Direct selected multireference configuration interaction calculations for large systems using localized orbitals

A selected multireference configuration interaction (CI) method and the corresponding code are presented. It is based on a procedure of localization that permits to obtain well localized occupied and virtual orbitals. Due to the local character of the electron correlation, using local orbitals allows one to neglect long range interactions. In a first step, three topological matrices are constructed, which determine whether two orbitals must be considered as interacting or not. Two of them concern the truncation of the determinant basis, one for occupied/virtual, the second one for dispersive interactions. The third one concerns the truncation of the list of two electron integrals. This approach permits a fine analysis of each kind of approximation and induces a huge reduction of the CI size and of the computational time. The procedure is tested on linear polyene aldehyde chains, dissociation potential energy curve, and reaction energy of a pesticide-Ca(2+) complex and finally on transition energies of a large iron system presenting a light-induced excited spin-state trapping effect.     

Ab initio CI calculations on benzene with an extended basis set

An extended basis set of triple zeta plus polarization quality is employed to carry out configuration interaction (CI ) calculations of the three lowest singlet and triplet excited states of benzene. The CI calculation is carried out by taking into account single and double excitations of π and σ electrons. In the CI , composite natural orbitals (CNO s), which are constructed from the natural orbitals of the ground state of ethylene, are used as virtual orbitals. The aim of using CNOs is to reduce the number of virtual orbitals to be used in constructing configuration-state functions, thus cutting down CI dimensions without losing reasonable accuracy. The excitation energies resulting from the CI are in fairly good agreement with experiment. The root mean square of the deviation is 0.22 eV for the six calculated energies and the largest disagreement is 0.37 eV for the third singlet excited state. To obtain better excitation energies by an ab initio calculation, it seems likely that we need to take into account more electron correlation than in the present calculation. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

The divide-expand-consolidate family of coupled cluster methods: numerical illustrations using second order Møller-Plesset perturbation theory

Previously, we have introduced the linear scaling coupled cluster (CC) divide-expand-consolidate (DEC) method, using an occupied space partitioning of the standard correlation energy. In this article, we show that the correlation energy may alternatively be expressed using a virtual space partitioning, and that the Lagrangian correlation energy may be partitioned using elements from both the occupied and virtual partitioning schemes. The partitionings of the correlation energy leads to atomic site and pair interaction energies which are term-wise invariant with respect to an orthogonal transformation among the occupied or the virtual orbitals. Evaluating the atomic site and pair interaction energies using local orbitals leads to a linear scaling algorithm and a distinction between Coulomb hole and dispersion energy contributions to the correlation energy. Further, a detailed error analysis is performed illustrating the error control imposed on all components of the energy by the chosen energy threshold. This error control is ultimately used to show how to reduce the computational cost for evaluating dispersion energy contributions in DEC.     

Exposé d'une méthode de détermination des orbitales virtuelles pour les interactions de configurations. Application à l'etat fondamental de l'atome de béryllium

A method for the determination of the virtual orbitals for configuration interaction is described. This method is a generalization of the one used by Watson in 1960 for the ground state of the beryllium atom. The important point in the method is to complete the set of functions used successively. As an illustration the method is applied to the ground state of the beryllium atom. The method seems to be efficient.     

Localization of virtual orbitals

The application of the MBPT in the localized representation requires that both the occupied and the virtual orbitals obtained by the canonical HF equation should be localized. The localization of the occupied orbitals is straightforward in general by any localization method. It is shown that by using Boys' method the localized virtual orbitals are spatially well separated and transferable not only in minimal basis sets.     

Extended floating spherical Gaussian basis sets for molecules. Alternative correlating orbitals for molecular energy calculations

A procedure previously described for representing large basis SCF results in terms of a smaller floating spherical Gaussian orbital (FSGO) basis set is generalized to apply to the virtual orbitals from the SCF calculation. This provides a method for systematically reducing the dimensions of the virtual space or replacing the virtual orbitals with a simpler, compact basis set. The method is illustrated by application to Lill.     

Analyzing the electric response of molecular conductors using “electron deformation” orbitals and occupied‐virtual electron transfer

The concept of “electron deformation orbitals” (EDOs) is used to investigate the electric response of conducting metals and oligophenyl chains. These orbitals and their eigenvalues are obtained by diagonalization of the deformation density matrix (difference between the density matrices of the perturbed and unperturbed systems) and can be constructed as linear combinations of the unperturbed molecular orbitals within “frozen geometry” conditions. This form of the EDOs allows calculating the part of the electron deformation density associated to an effective electron transfer from occupied to virtual orbitals (valence to conduction band electron transfer in the band model of conductivity). It is found that the “electron deformation” orbitals pair off, displaying the same eigenvalue but opposite sign. Each pair represents an amount of accumulation/depletion of electron charge at different molecular regions. In the oligophenyl systems investigated only one pair contributes effectively to the charge flow between molecular ends, resulting from the promotion of electrons from occupied orbitals to close in energy virtual orbitals of appropriate symmetry and overlapping. Analysis of this pair along explains the differences in conductance of olygophenyl chains based on phenyl units. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Molecule intrinsic minimal basis sets. II. Bonding analyses for Si4H6 and Si2 to Si10

The method, introduced in the preceding paper, for recasting molecular self-consistent field (SCF) or density functional theory (DFT) orbitals in terms of intrinsic minimal bases of quasiatomic orbitals, which differ only little from the optimal free-atom minimal-basis orbitals, is used to elucidate the bonding in several silicon clusters. The applications show that the quasiatomic orbitals deviate from the minimal-basis SCF orbitals of the free atoms by only very small deformations and that the latter arise mainly from bonded neighbor atoms. The Mulliken population analysis in terms of the quasiatomic minimal-basis orbitals leads to a quantum mechanical interpretation of small-ring strain in terms of antibonding encroachments of localized molecular-orbitals and identifies the origin of the bond-stretch isomerization in Si4H6. In the virtual SCF/DFT orbital space, the method places the qualitative notion of virtual valence orbitals on a firm basis and provides an unambiguous ab initio identification of the frontier orbitals.     

Effective potential energy barriers and X-ray transitions of sulphate ion

X-ray transition energies and intensities of sulphate ion are computed from limited CI wavefunctions including singly excited configurations. The results are interpreted in terms of one-electron promotions by using the improved virtual orbitals introduced first by Hunt and Goddard III [11]. The effective potential for virtual orbitals shows a barrier at large distance from sulphur nucleus.     

Localized orbitals for the description of molecular interaction

The intermolecular interaction between the molecules CH₂O and NH₃ was investigated by the supermolecule method. The interaction energies were first calculated at the ab initio SCF level, and the electron correlation was included via second-order Møller-Plesset perturbation theory (MP 2). The basis set superposition error (BSSE ) was taken into account by the counter-poise (CP ) method. The occupied and the virtual canonical molecular orbitals (CMOS ) of the supermolecule were separately localized by the Boys' procedure. The correlation correction was calculated by the many-body perturbation theory (MBPT ) in the localized representation. Contributions of the third- and fourth-order localized diagrams were added to those of the second-order canonical diagram. This procedure gives a correction nearly equivalent to that of MP 2. The possibility to separate LMO contributions responsible for the dispersion interaction was investigated.     

The generalized valence bond π orbitals of ethylene and allyl cation

Using a fixed sigma core obtained from full electron ab initio Hartree-Fock calculations, the spatially projected GVB orbitals for the pi electron systems of ethylene and allyl cation are reported. The GVB(SP) method generates wavefunctions possessing the correct spatial and spin symmetry without restricting the nature of the individual orbitals. The GVB(SP) wavefunction provides a simple interpretation of the molecule in terms of orbitals each containing a single electron. The resulting total energies and excitation energies agree very well with full configuration interaction calculations.     

Local orbitals by minimizing powers of the orbital variance

It is demonstrated that a set of local orthonormal Hartree-Fock (HF) molecular orbitals can be obtained for both the occupied and virtual orbital spaces by minimizing powers of the orbital variance using the trust-region algorithm. For a power exponent equal to one, the Boys localization function is obtained. For increasing power exponents, the penalty for delocalized orbitals is increased and smaller maximum orbital spreads are encountered. Calculations on superbenzene, C(60), and a fragment of the titin protein show that for a power exponent equal to one, delocalized outlier orbitals may be encountered. These disappear when the exponent is larger than one. For a small penalty, the occupied orbitals are more local than the virtual ones. When the penalty is increased, the locality of the occupied and virtual orbitals becomes similar. In fact, when increasing the cardinal number for Dunning's correlation consistent basis sets, it is seen that for larger penalties, the virtual orbitals become more local than the occupied ones. We also show that the local virtual HF orbitals are significantly more local than the redundant projected atomic orbitals, which often have been used to span the virtual orbital space in local correlated wave function calculations. Our local molecular orbitals thus appear to be a good candidate for local correlation methods.     

An extension of the pairing theorem

An extended pairing scheme is presented which ensures the fulfillment of pairing conditions not only between the sets of occupied orbitals for spin α and for spin β, but also between their orthogonal complements, i.e., the sets of virtual orbitals for spin α and spin β, as well as between occupied orbitals for spin α and virtual orbitals for spin β and between virtual orbitals for spin α and occupied orbitals for spin β. It is shown that the extended pairing properties are suggested by some aspects of the construction of alternant molecular orbitals. The algorithm for singular value decomposition of rectangular matrices is proposed for use in practical implementations of the (extended) pairing scheme.     

NMR shielding tensors for density fitted local second-order Mo̸ller-Plesset perturbation theory using gauge including atomic orbitals

An efficient method for the calculation of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) shielding tensors is presented, which treats electron correlation at the level of second-order Mo?ller-Plesset perturbation theory. It uses spatially localized functions to span occupied and virtual molecular orbital spaces, respectively, which are expanded in a basis of gauge including atomic orbitals (GIAOs or London atomic orbitals). Doubly excited determinants are restricted to local subsets of the virtual space and pair energies with an interorbital distance beyond a certain threshold are omitted. Furthermore, density fitting is employed to factorize the electron repulsion integrals. Ordinary Gaussians are employed as fitting functions. It is shown that the errors in the resulting NMR shielding constant, introduced (i) by the local approximation and (ii) by density fitting, are very small or even negligible. The capabilities of the new program are demonstrated by calculations on some extended molecular systems, such as the cyclobutane pyrimidine dimer photolesion with adjacent nucleobases in the native intrahelical DNA double strand (ATTA sequence). Systems of that size were not accessible to correlated ab initio calculations of NMR spectra before. The presented method thus opens the door to new and interesting applications in this area.     

Localization of molecular orbitals on fragments

A non‐iterative algorithm for the localization of molecular orbitals (MOs) from complete active space self consistent field (CASSCF) and for single‐determinantal wave functions on predefined moieties is given. The localized fragment orbitals can be used to analyze chemical reactions between fragments and also the binding of fragments in the product molecule with a fragments‐in‐molecules approach by using a valence bond expansion of the CASSCF wave function. The algorithm is an example of the orthogonal Procrustes problem, which is a matrix optimization problem using the singular value decomposition. It is based on the similarity of the set of MOs for the moieties to the localized MOs of the molecule; the similarity is expressed by overlap matrices between the original fragment MOs and the localized MOs. For CASSCF wave functions, localization is done independently in the space of occupied orbitals and active orbitals, whereas, the space of virtual orbitals is mostly uninteresting. Localization of Hartree–Fock or Kohn–Sham density functional theory orbitals is not straightforward; rather, it needs careful consideration, because in this case some virtual orbitals are needed but the space of virtual orbitals depends on the basis sets used and causes considerable problems due to the diffuse character of most virtual orbitals. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.