A determinantal approach to spin-orbit configuration interaction

A general configuration interaction (CI) algorithm incorporating one- and two-electron spin-orbit operators is presented. The algorithm is determinant based and enables the use of highly vectorized non-relativistic algorithms in the most operation-intensive part. Excitations between α and β spin orbitals are avoided in the time consuming parts by performing separate S ₊ and S ₋ operations. The relativistic CI expansions are often very large, so the algorithms require only the presence of segments of vectors in memory. Double-group symmetry is fully accounted for and time-reversal symmetry is exploited for both even and odd numbers of electrons. Received: 12 October 1996 / Accepted: 24 January 1997