Code generation in ORCA: progress, efficiency and tight integration.

An improved version of ORCA's automated generator environment (ORCA-AGE II) is presented. The algorithmic improvements and the move to C++ as the programming language lead to a performance gain of up to two orders of magnitude compared to the previously developed PYTHON toolchain. Additionally, the restructured modular design allows for far more complex code engines to be implemented readily. Importantly, we have realised an extremely tight integration with the ORCA host program. This allows for a workflow in which only the wavefunction Ansatz is part of the source code repository while all actual high-level code is generated automatically, inserted at the appropriate place in the host program before it is compiled and linked together with the hand written code parts. This construction ensures longevity and uniform code quality. Furthermore the new developments allow ORCA-AGE II to generate parallelised production-level code for highly complex theories, such as fully internally contracted multireference coupled-cluster theory (fic-MRCC) with an enormous number of contributing tensor contractions. We also discuss the automated implementation of nuclear gradients for arbitrary theories. All these improvements enable the implementation of theories that are too complex for the human mind and also reduce development times by orders of magnitude. We hope that this work enables researchers to concentrate on the intellectual content of the theories they develop rather than be concerned with technical details of the implementation.

The ORCA quantum chemistry program package.

In this contribution to the special software-centered issue, the ORCA program package is described. We start with a short historical perspective of how the project began and go on to discuss its current feature set. ORCA has grown into a rather comprehensive general-purpose package for theoretical research in all areas of chemistry and many neighboring disciplines such as materials sciences and biochemistry. ORCA features density functional theory, a range of wavefunction based correlation methods, semi-empirical methods, and even force-field methods. A range of solvation and embedding models is featured as well as a complete intrinsic to ORCA quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics engine. A specialty of ORCA always has been a focus on transition metals and spectroscopy as well as a focus on applicability of the implemented methods to "real-life" chemical applications involving systems with a few hundred atoms. In addition to being efficient, user friendly, and, to the largest extent possible, platform independent, ORCA features a number of methods that are either unique to ORCA or have been first implemented in the course of the ORCA development. Next to a range of spectroscopic and magnetic properties, the linear- or low-order single- and multi-reference local correlation methods based on pair natural orbitals (domain based local pair natural orbital methods) should be mentioned here. Consequently, ORCA is a widely used program in various areas of chemistry and spectroscopy with a current user base of over 22 000 registered users in academic research and in industry.

Chemical Tuning of Magnetic Exchange Couplings Using Broken-Symmetry Density Functional Theory.

With broken-symmetry Kohn-Sham density functional theory calculations, it is demonstrated that the ferromagnetic or anti-ferromagnetic character of two prototypical binuclear copper complexes can be modified, both in the sign and in magnitude, by means of chemical substitutions operated on the bridges connecting the two magnetic centers. The level of detail provided by the magnetic exchange decomposition in terms of direct exchange, kinetic exchange, and core polarization puts forward the relative importance of the different bridges. At variance with the principal bridge for which chemical substitutions modify both the direct and the kinetic exchange contributions, modifications of the secondary bridge only affect the magnitude of the anti-ferromagnetic kinetic exchange mechanism, ultimately allowing for a direct control of the magnetic character of the modified compound.

Arbitrary Angular Momentum Electron Repulsion Integrals with Graphical Processing Units: Application to the Resolution of Identity Hartree-Fock Method.

A resolution of identity based implementation of the Hartree-Fock method on graphical processing units (GPUs) is presented that is capable of handling basis functions with arbitrary angular momentum. For practical reasons, only functions up to (ff|f) angular momentum are presently calculated on the GPU, thus leaving the calculation of higher angular momenta integrals on the CPU of the hybrid CPU-GPU environment. Speedups of up to a factor of 30 are demonstrated relative to state-of-the-art serial and parallel CPU implementations. Benchmark calculations with over 3500 contracted basis functions (def2-SVP or def2-TZVP basis sets) are reported. The presented implementation supports all devices with OpenCL support and is capable of utilizing multiple GPU cards over either MPI or OpenCL itself.

Free reaction enthalpy profile of the Schrock cycle derived from density functional theory calculations on the full [Mo(HIPT)N3N] catalyst.

A series of density functional theory (DFT) calculations on the full [Mo(HIPT)N3N] catalyst are performed to obtain an energy profile of the Schrock cycle. This is a continuation of our earlier investigation of this cycle in which the bulky hexaisopropyterphenyl (HIPT) substituents of the ligand were replaced by hydrogen atoms (Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 2005, 44, 5639). In an effort to provide a treatment that is as converged as possible from a quantum-chemical point of view, the present study now fully takes the HIPT moieties into account. Moreover, structures and energies are calculated with a near-saturated basis set, leading to models with 280 atoms and 4850 basis functions. Solvent and scalar relativistic effects have been treated using the conductor-like screening model and zeroth-order regular approximation, respectively. Free reaction enthalpies are evaluated using the PBE and B3LYP functionals. A comparison to the available experimental data reveals much better agreement with the experiment than preceding DFT treatments of the Schrock cycle. In particular, free reaction enthalpies of reduction steps and NH3/N2 exchange are now excellently reproduced.

Accurate theoretical chemistry with coupled pair models.

Quantum chemistry has found its way into the everyday work of many experimental chemists. Calculations can predict the outcome of chemical reactions, afford insight into reaction mechanisms, and be used to interpret structure and bonding in molecules. Thus, contemporary theory offers tremendous opportunities in experimental chemical research. However, even with present-day computers and algorithms, we cannot solve the many particle Schrodinger equation exactly; inevitably some error is introduced in approximating the solutions of this equation. Thus, the accuracy of quantum chemical calculations is of critical importance. The affordable accuracy depends on molecular size and particularly on the total number of atoms: for orientation, ethanol has 9 atoms, aspirin 21 atoms, morphine 40 atoms, sildenafil 63 atoms, paclitaxel 113 atoms, insulin nearly 800 atoms, and quaternary hemoglobin almost 12,000 atoms. Currently, molecules with up to approximately 10 atoms can be very accurately studied by coupled cluster (CC) theory, approximately 100 atoms with second-order Møller-Plesset perturbation theory (MP2), approximately 1000 atoms with density functional theory (DFT), and beyond that number with semiempirical quantum chemistry and force-field methods. The overwhelming majority of present-day calculations in the 100-atom range use DFT. Although these methods have been very successful in quantum chemistry, they do not offer a well-defined hierarchy of calculations that allows one to systematically converge to the correct answer. Recently a number of rather spectacular failures of DFT methods have been found-even for seemingly simple systems such as hydrocarbons, fueling renewed interest in wave function-based methods that incorporate the relevant physics of electron correlation in a more systematic way. Thus, it would be highly desirable to fill the gap between 10 and 100 atoms with highly correlated ab initio methods. We have found that one of the earliest (and now almost forgotten) of this class of methods, the coupled-electron pair approximation (CEPA), performs exceedingly well in chemical applications. In this Account, we examine the performance of CEPA in chemical applications. One attractive feature of CEPA, in addition to its surprising accuracy that surpasses that of DFT and MP2 theory, is a simplicity that allows for straightforward and very efficient approximations and extensions to be developed; these are much more difficult or even impossible with the more rigorous CC theory. Thus, approximate CEPA methods can be implemented efficiently enough to allow for calculations on molecules of 50-100 atoms, perhaps the most common range in contemporary chemical research.

Efficient and accurate local approximations to coupled-electron pair approaches: An attempt to revive the pair natural orbital method.

Coupled-electron pair approximations (CEPAs) and coupled-pair functionals (CPFs) have been popular in the 1970s and 1980s and have yielded excellent results for small molecules. Recently, interest in CEPA and CPF methods has been renewed. It has been shown that these methods lead to competitive thermochemical, kinetic, and structural predictions. They greatly surpass second order Moller-Plesset and popular density functional theory based approaches in accuracy and are intermediate in quality between CCSD and CCSD(T) in extended benchmark studies. In this work an efficient production level implementation of the closed shell CEPA and CPF methods is reported that can be applied to medium sized molecules in the range of 50-100 atoms and up to about 2000 basis functions. The internal space is spanned by localized internal orbitals. The external space is greatly compressed through the method of pair natural orbitals (PNOs) that was also introduced by the pioneers of the CEPA approaches. Our implementation also makes extended use of density fitting (or resolution of the identity) techniques in order to speed up the laborious integral transformations. The method is called local pair natural orbital CEPA (LPNO-CEPA) (LPNO-CPF). The implementation is centered around the concepts of electron pairs and matrix operations. Altogether three cutoff parameters are introduced that control the size of the significant pair list, the average number of PNOs per electron pair, and the number of contributing basis functions per PNO. With the conservatively chosen default values of these thresholds, the method recovers about 99.8% of the canonical correlation energy. This translates to absolute deviations from the canonical result of only a few kcal mol(-1). Extended numerical test calculations demonstrate that LPNO-CEPA (LPNO-CPF) has essentially the same accuracy as parent CEPA (CPF) methods for thermochemistry, kinetics, weak interactions, and potential energy surfaces but is up to 500 times faster. The method performs best in conjunction with large and flexible basis sets. These results open the way for large-scale chemical applications.

Structure-activity relationships of a caged thrombin binding DNA aptamer: insight gained from molecular dynamics simulation studies.

15-mer ssDNA aptamers play a vital role in the inhibition of alpha-thrombin in the blood clotting mechanism. It is of high importance to explore the structural factors controlling the inhibitory nature of the aptamer. Here we investigated the structure-function relationship of the anti-thrombin aptamer, as well as its 'caged' variant (2-(2-nitrophenyl)-propyl group (NPP)) by molecular dynamics simulations. The stability of the unmodified aptamer at different temperatures is examined in 2ns all-atom simulations and compared to experiment. The change in structure when introducing the photo-labile caged compound is analyzed, and the regiospecificity of this modification explained on atomic level. Removal of the photo-labile group leads to the reformation of the active aptamer structure from its inactive state. The mechanism for this formation process is a concerted movement of the aptamer backbone and some highly important bases. The binding of the aptamer to thrombin with regard to the 'caged' group is studied in an explicit simulation with the aptamer-thrombin complex and the reason for the binding/unbinding nature of the aptamer shown.

Theoretical bioinorganic chemistry: the electronic structure makes a difference.

Theoretical bioinorganic and biomimetic chemistry involves the careful description of the electronic structure: for example, 'valence bond reading' of broken-symmetry density functional theory computations gives insight into the structure and bonding of metal-radical systems with complex electronic structures. Exploring the reactivities of such systems leads to the design of novel compounds with better reactivities. Combined quantum-mechanics/molecular-mechanics (QM/MM), where the QM part is a sophisticated ab initio method, aids in understanding nature's most complicated reaction mechanisms in atomic detail. First principles molecular dynamics simulations (Car-Parrinello simulations) open up exciting new avenues for studying transition metal centers and enable several questions to be addressed that cannot be resolved with either standard quantum chemical or traditional force-field methods.