Embracing local suppression and enhancement of dynamic correlation effects in a CASΠDFT method for efficient description of excited states.

The recently proposed CASΠDFT method combines the reliable description of nondynamic electron correlation with the complete active space (CAS) wavefunction and the efficient treatment of dynamic correlation by density functional theory (DFT). This marriage is accomplished by adopting the DFT correlation energy functional modified with the local correction function of the on-top pair density (Π). The role of the correction function is to sensitize the correlation functional to local effects of suppression and enhancement of dynamic correlation and to account for an adequate amount of dynamic correlation energy. In this work we show that the presence of covalent and ionic configurations in a wavefunction gives rise to spatial regions where the effects of suppression and enhancement of correlation energy, respectively, dominate. The results obtained for the potential energy curves of the excited states of the hydrogen molecule prove that CASΠDFT is reliable for states that change their character along the dissociation curve. The method is also applied to the lowest excited states of six-membered heterocyclic nitrogen compounds such as pyridine, pyrazine, pyrimidine, and pyridazine. The obtained excitation energies for the n → π* and π → π* excitations confirm the good performance of CASΠDFT for excited states. The absolute average error of the method is 0.1 eV lower than that of the CCSD method and higher by the same amount than that of the more expansive CC3 variant. Compared with the coupled cluster methods, this encouraging performance of CASΠDFT is achieved at the negligible computational cost of obtaining the correlation energy.

Molecular multibond dissociation with small complete active space augmented by correlation density functionals.

Molecular multibond dissociation displays a variety of electron correlation effects posing a challenge for theoretical description. We propose a CASΠ(M)DFT approach, which includes these effects in an efficient way by combining the complete active space self-consistent field method with density functional theory (DFT). Within CASΠ(M)DFT, a small complete active space (CAS) accounts for the long-range intrabond and middle-range interbond nondynamic correlation in the stretched bonds. The common short-range dynamic correlation is calculated with the Lee-Yang-Parr (LYP) correlation DFT functional corrected for the suppression of dynamic correlation with nondynamic correlation. The remaining middle-range interbond dynamic correlation is evaluated with the modified LYP functional of the bond densities. As a result, CASΠ(M)DFT potential energy curves (PECs) calculated in the relatively small triple-zeta basis closely reproduce the benchmark complete basis set PECs for the following prototype multibonded molecules: N2, CO, H2O, and C2.

Local Enhancement of Dynamic Correlation in Excited States: Fresh Perspective on Ionicity and Development of Correlation Density Functional Approximation Based on the On-Top Pair Density.

We discuss the interplay between the nondynamic and dynamic electron correlation in excited states from the perspective of the suppression of dynamic correlation (SDC) and enhancement of dynamic correlation (EDC) effects. We reveal that there exists a connection between the ionic character of a wave function and EDC. Following this finding we introduce a quantitative measure of ionicity based solely on local functions without referring to valence bond models. The ability to recognize both the SDC and EDC regions underlies the presented method, named CASΠDFT, combining complete active space (CAS) wave function and density functional theory (DFT) via the on-top pair density (Π) function. We extend this approach to excited states by devising an improved representation of the EDC effect in the correlation functional. The generalized CASΠDFT uses different DFT functionals for ground and excited states. Numerical demonstration for singlet π → π* excitations shows that CASΠDFT offers satisfactory accuracy at a fraction of the cost of the ab initio approaches.

Reproducing benchmark potential energy curves of molecular bond dissociation with small complete active space aided with density and density-matrix functional corrections.

Various effects of electron correlation accompany molecular bond dissociation, which makes the efficient calculation of potential energy curves a notoriously difficult problem. In an attempt to reliably reproduce both absolute energies and shapes of the benchmark dissociation curves, calculations with the combined CASΠDFT method are carried out for the prototype molecules H2, BH, F2, and N2. The complete active space (CAS) part of CASΠDFT accounts for long-range nondynamic correlation, while short-range dynamic correlation is accounted for with the corrected Lee-Yang-Parr correlation functional of density functional theory (DFT). The correction represents the suppression of dynamic correlation with nondynamic correlation, and it is a function of the ratio x(r) between the conditional and conventional densities obtained with the CAS on-top pair density Π(r). For the single-bonded molecules H2, BH, and F2, CASΠDFT succeeds in reproducing the shapes and absolute energies (for H2 and BH) of the benchmark curves, while for the triple-bonded N2 molecule, the addition to CASΠDFT of a multibond correction is required. It accounts for the middle-range dynamic correlation of the same-spin electrons in the (symmetrized) high-spin atomic electron configurations of the dissociating N2.

Complete active space and corrected density functional theories helping each other to describe vertical electronic π → π* excitations in prototype multiple-bonded molecules.

The CASΠDFT method, which combines the complete active space (CAS) wave function approach and density functional theory (DFT), offers an efficient description of important excitations to the lowest excited states. CASΠDFT employs a correlation DFT functional corrected with a function P[x] of the ratio xr of the conditional and conventional electron densities obtained with the CAS on-top pair density Π(r). The sectors of P[x] for x(r) ≤ 1 and x(r) > 1 represent the opposite effects of the suppression of dynamic correlation with nondynamic correlation and its enhancement due to the ionic-type excitation. The present combination of the self-consistent-field CAS and the corrected Lee-Yang-Parr correlation functional closely reproduces in the relatively small double-zeta basis the benchmark experimental lowest singlet vertical π → π* excitations in the prototype multiple-bonded molecules N2, CO, C2H2, and C2H4.

Counterpoise correction is not useful for short and Van der Waals distances but may be useful at long range.

This article investigates the errors in supermolecule calculations for the helium dimer. In a full CI calculation, there are two errors. One is the basis set superposition error (BSSE), the other is the basis set convergence error (BSCE). Both of the errors arise from the incompleteness of the basis set. These two errors make opposite contributions to the interaction energies. The BSCE is by far the largest error in the short range and larger than (but much closer to) BSSE around the Van der Waals minimum. Only at the long range, the BSSE becomes the larger error. The BSCE and BSSE largely cancel each other over the Van der Waals well. Accordingly, it may be recommended to not include the BSSE for the calculation of the potential energy curve from short distance till well beyond the Van der Waals minimum, but it may be recommended to include the BSSE correction if an accurate tail behavior is required. Only if the calculation has used a very large basis set, one can refrain from including the counterpoise correction in the full potential range. These results are based on full CI calculations with the aug-cc-pVXZ (X = D, T, Q, 5) basis sets.

Double excitation effect in non-adiabatic time-dependent density functional theory with an analytic construction of the exchange-correlation kernel in the common energy denominator approximation.

Time-dependent density functional (response) theory (TDDF(R)T) is applied almost exclusively in its adiabatic approximation (ATDDFT), which is restricted to predominantly single electronic excitations and neglects additional roots of the TDDFT eigenvalue problem stemming from the interaction between single and double excitations. We incorporate the effect of the latter interaction into a non-adiabatic frequency-dependent and spatially non-local Hartree-exchange-correlation (Hxc) kernel fCEDAHxc (r1, r2, omega), the explicit analytical expression of which is derived for interacting single and double excitations well separated from the other excitations, within the common energy denominator approximation (CEDA) for the Kohn-Sham (KS) and interacting density response functions, chis and chi, respectively. The kernel fCEDAHxc (r1, r2, omega) obtained from the direct analytical inverse of chiCEDAs and chiCEDA is a sum of the delta-function and non-local orbital-dependent spatial terms with frequency-dependent factors, with which fCEDAHxc acquires a modulated quadratic dependence on omega. The effective incorporation in fCEDAHxc of the complete manifold of excited states (through the delta function term) represents an extension of the kernel reported by Maitra, Zhang, Cave, and Burke [J. Chem. Phys., 2004, 120, 5932]. In the TDDFT eigenvalue equations considered in the diagonal approximation, fCEDAHxc generates two excitation energies omegaq and omegaq+1, which both correspond to the same single KS excitation omegasq, thus producing the effect of the single-double excitation interaction.

A density matrix functional with occupation number driven treatment of dynamical and nondynamical correlation.

A recently proposed series of corrections to the earliest JK-only functionals has considerably improved the prospects of density matrix functional theory (DMFT). Still, the most advanced of these functionals (correction C3) requires a preselection of the terms in the pair density Gamma(r(1),r(2)) involving the bonding and antibonding natural orbitals (NOs) belonging to an electron pair bond. Ideally, a DMFT functional should only depend on the NOs and their occupation numbers, and we propose a functional with an occupation number driven weighing of terms in the pair density. These are formulated as "damping" for certain ranges of occupation numbers of the two-electron cumulant that arises in the expansion of the two-particle density matrix of the paradigmatic two-electron system. This automatic version of C3, which we denote AC3, provides the correct dissociation limit for electron pair bonds and it excellently reproduces the potential energy curves of the multireference configuration interaction (MRCI) method for the dissociation of the electron pair bond in the series of the ten-electron hydrides CH(4), NH(3), H(2)O, and HF. AC3 reproduces closely the experimental equilibrium distances and at R(e) it yields correlation energies of the ten-electron systems with an average error in the absolute values of only 3.3% compared to the MRCI values. We stress the importance of treatment of strong correlation cases (NO occupation numbers differing significantly from 2.0 and 0.0) by appropriate terms in the cumulant.