Basis-set convergence of the two-electron Darwin term

Three-body potential and third virial coefficients for helium including relativistic and nuclear-motion effects

The non-additive three-body interaction potential for helium was computed using the coupled-cluster theory and the full configuration interaction method. The obtained potential comprises an improved nonrelativistic Born-Oppenheimer energy and the leading relativistic and nuclear-motion corrections. The mean absolute uncertainty of our calculations due to the incompleteness of the orbital basis set was determined employing complete-basis-set extrapolation techniques and was found to be 1.2%. For three helium atoms forming an equilateral triangle with the side length of 5.6 bohr - a geometry close to the minimum of the total potential energy surface - our three-body potential amounts to -90.6 mK, with an estimated uncertainty of 0.5 mK. An analytic function, developed to accurately fit the computed three-body interaction energies, was chosen to correctly describe the asymptotic behavior of the three-body potential for trimer configurations corresponding to both the three-atomic and the atom-diatom fragmentation channels. For large triangles with sides r12, r23, and r31, the potential takes correctly into account all angular terms decaying as r-l12 r-m23 r-n21 with l + m + n ≤ 14 for the nonrelativistic Born-Oppenheimer energy and l + m + n ≤ 9 for the post-Born-Oppenheimer corrections. We also developed a short-range analytic function describing the local behavior of the total uncertainty of the computed three-body interaction energies. Using both fits we calculated the third pressure and acoustic virial coefficients for helium and their uncertainties for a wide range of temperatures. The results of these calculations were compared with available experimental data and with previous theoretical determinations. The estimated uncertainties of present calculations are 3-5 times smaller than those reported in the best previous works.

Collision-induced three-body polarizability of helium

We present the first-principles determination of the three-body polarizability and the third dielectric virial coefficient of helium. Coupled-cluster and full configuration interaction methods were used to perform electronic structure calculations. The mean absolute relative uncertainty of the trace of the polarizability tensor, resulting from the incompleteness of the orbital basis set, was found to be 4.7%. Additional uncertainty due to the approximate treatment of triple and the neglect of higher excitations was estimated at 5.7%. An analytic function was developed to describe the short-range behavior of the polarizability and its asymptotics in all fragmentation channels. We calculated the third dielectric virial coefficient and its uncertainty using the classical and semiclassical Feynman-Hibbs approaches. The results of our calculations were compared with experimental data and with recent Path-Integral Monte Carlo (PIMC) calculations [Garberoglio et al., J. Chem. Phys. 155, 234103 (2021)] employing the so-called superposition approximation of the three-body polarizability. For temperatures above 200 K, we observed a significant discrepancy between the classical results obtained using superposition approximation and the ab initio computed polarizability. For temperatures from 10 K up to 200 K, the differences between PIMC and semiclassical calculations are several times smaller than the uncertainties of our results. Except at low temperatures, our results agree very well with the available experimental data but have much smaller uncertainties. The data reported in this work eliminate the main accuracy bottleneck in the optical pressure standard [Gaiser et al., Ann. Phys. 534, 2200336 (2022)] and facilitate further progress in the field of quantum metrology.

Relativistic and quantum electrodynamics effects in the helium pair potential

The helium pair potential was computed including relativistic and quantum electrodynamics contributions as well as improved accuracy adiabatic ones. Accurate asymptotic expansions were used for large distances R. Error estimates show that the present potential is more accurate than any published to date. The computed dissociation energy and the average R for the (4)He(2) bound state are 1.62+/-0.03 mK and 47.1+/-0.5 A. These values can be compared with the measured ones: 1.1(-0.2)(+0.3) mK and 52+/-4 A [R. E. Grisenti, Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 2284 (2000)].

Basis-set extrapolation techniques for the accurate calculation of molecular equilibrium geometries using coupled-cluster theory

To reduce remaining basis-set errors in the determination of molecular equilibrium geometries, a basis-set extrapolation (BSE) scheme is suggested for the forces used in geometry optimizations. The proposed BSE scheme is based on separating the Hartree-Fock and electron-correlation contributions and uses expressions obtained by straightforward differentiation of well established extrapolation formulas for energies when using basis sets from Dunning's hierarchy of correlation-consistent basis sets. Comparison with reference data obtained at the R12 coupled-cluster level [CCSD(T)-R12] demonstrates that BSE significantly accelerates the convergence to the basis-set limit, thus leading to improvements comparable to or even better than those obtained by increasing the cardinal number in the used basis set by one. However, BSE alone is insufficient to improve agreement with experiment, even after additional consideration of inner-shell correlation and quadruple-excitation effects (mean error and standard deviation with extrapolation are -0.014 and 0.047 pm in comparison with mean error and standard deviation of -0.002 and 0.036 pm without extrapolation). Improvement is obtained only when other contributions of similar magnitude as the BSE contributions (e.g., pentuple-excitation effects and relativistic effects) are also considered. A rather large discrepancy (of the order of a few tenths of a picometer) is observed for the F(2) molecule indicating an enhanced basis-set requirement for the various contributions in this case.

Accurate quantum-chemical prediction of enthalpies of formation of small molecules in the gas phase

The coupled-cluster approach, including single and double excitations and perturbative corrections for triple excitations, is capable of predicting molecular electronic energies and enthalpies of formation of small molecules in the gas phase with very high accuracy (specifically, with error bars less than 5 kJmol-1), provided that the electronic wavefunction is dominated by the Hartree-Fock configuration. This capability is illustrated by calculations on molecules containing O-H and O-F bonds, namely OH, FO, H2O, HOF, and F2O. To achieve this very high accuracy, it is imperative to account for electron-correlation effects in a quantitative manner, either by using explicitly correlated two-particle basis functions (R12 functions) or by extrapolating to the limit of a complete basis. Besides taking into account harmonic zero-point vibrational energies, it is also necessary to account for anharmonic corrections to the zero-point vibrational energies, to include the core orbitals into the coupled-cluster calculations, and to account for spin-orbit corrections and scalar relativistic effects. These additional corrections constitute small but significant contributions in the range of 1-4 kJmol-1 to the enthalpies of formation of the aforementioned molecules. The highly accurate coupled-cluster results, obtained by employing R12 functions and by including various corrections, are compared with standard Kohn-Sham density-functional calculations as well as with the Gaussian-2 and complete-basis-set model chemistries.