Orbital Energies for Seniority-Zero Wave Functions

Delving into the catalytic mechanism of molybdenum cofactors: a novel coupled cluster study

In this work, we use modern electronic structure methods to model the catalytic mechanism of different variants of the molybdenum cofactor (Moco). We investigate the dependence of various Moco model systems on structural relaxation and the importance of environmental effects for five critical points along the reaction coordinate with the DMSO and NO3- substrates. Furthermore, we scrutinize the performance of various coupled-cluster approaches for modeling the relative energies along the investigated reaction paths, focusing on several pair coupled cluster doubles (pCCD) flavors and conventional coupled cluster approximations. Moreover, we elucidate the Mo-O bond formation using orbital-based quantum information measures, which highlight the flow of σM-O bond formation and σN/S-O bond breaking. Our study shows that pCCD-based models are a viable alternative to conventional methods and offer us unique insights into the bonding situation along a reaction coordinate. Finally, this work highlights the importance of environmental effects or changes in the core and, consequently, in the model itself to elucidate the change in activity of different Moco variants.

Toward Reliable Dipole Moments without Single Excitations: The Role of Orbital Rotations and Dynamical Correlation

The dipole moment is a crucial molecular property linked to a molecular system's bond polarity and overall electronic structure. To that end, the electronic dipole moment, which results from the electron density of a system, is often used to assess the accuracy and reliability of new electronic structure methods. This work analyses electronic dipole moments computed with the pair coupled cluster doubles (pCCD) ansätze and its linearized coupled cluster (pCCD-LCC) corrections using the canonical Hartree-Fock and pCCD-optimized (localized) orbital bases. The accuracy of pCCD-based dipole moments is assessed against experimental and CCSD(T) reference values using relaxed and unrelaxed density matrices and different basis set sizes. Our test set comprises molecules of various bonding patterns and electronic structures, exposing pCCD-based methods to a wide range of electron correlation effects. Additionally, we investigate the performance of pCCD-in-DFT dipole moments of some model complexes. Finally, our work indicates the importance of orbital relaxation in the pCCD model and shows the limitations of the linearized couple cluster corrections in predicting electronic dipole moments of multiple-bonded systems. Most importantly, pCCD with a linearized CCD correction can reproduce the dipole moment surfaces in singly bonded molecules, which are comparable to the multireference ones.

Benchmarking Ionization Potentials from pCCD Tailored Coupled Cluster Models

The ionization potential (IP) is an important parameter providing essential insights into the reactivity of chemical systems. IPs are also crucial for designing, optimizing, and understanding the functionality of modern technological devices. We recently showed that limiting the CC ansatz to the seniority-zero sector proves insufficient in predicting reliable and accurate ionization potentials within an IP equation-of-motion coupled-cluster formalism. Specifically, the absence of dynamical correlation in the seniority-zero pair coupled cluster doubles (pCCD) model led to unacceptably significant errors of approximately 1.5 eV. In this work, we aim to explore the impact of dynamical correlation and the choice of the molecular orbital basis (canonical vs localized) in CC-type methods targeting 230 ionized states in 70 molecules, comprising small organic molecules, medium-sized organic acceptors, and nucleobases. We focus on pCCD-based approaches as well as the conventional IP-EOM-CCD and IP-EOM-CCSD. Their performance is compared to the CCSD(T) or CCSDT equivalent and experimental reference data. Our statistical analysis reveals that all investigated frozen-pair coupled cluster methods exhibit similar performance, with differences in errors typically within chemical accuracy (1 kcal/mol or 0.05 eV). Notably, the effect of the molecular orbital basis, such as canonical Hartree-Fock or natural pCCD-optimized orbitals, on the IPs is marginal if dynamical correlation is accounted for. Our study suggests that triple excitations are crucial in achieving chemical accuracy in IPs when modeling electron detachment processes with pCCD-based methods.

Coupled cluster-inspired geminal wavefunctions

Electron pairs have an illustrious history in chemistry, from powerful concepts to understanding structural stability and reactive changes to the promise of serving as building blocks of quantitative descriptions of the electronic structure of complex molecules and materials. However, traditionally, two-electron wavefunctions (geminals) have not enjoyed the popularity and widespread use of the more standard single-particle methods. This has changed recently, with a renewed interest in the development of geminal wavefunctions as an alternative to describing strongly correlated phenomena. Hence, there is a need to find geminal methods that are accurate, computationally tractable, and do not demand significant input from the user (particularly via cumbersome and often ill-behaved orbital optimization steps). Here, we propose new families of geminal wavefunctions inspired by the pair coupled cluster doubles ansatz. We present a new hierarchy of two-electron wavefunctions that extends the one-reference orbital idea to other geminals. Moreover, we show how to incorporate single-like excitations in this framework without leaving the quasiparticle picture. We explore the role of imposing seniority restrictions on these wavefunctions and benchmark these new methods on model strongly correlated systems.

Geminal-Based Strategies for Modeling Large Building Blocks of Organic Electronic Materials

We elaborate on unconventional electronic structure methods based on geminals and their potential to advance the rapidly developing field of organic photovoltaics (OPVs). Specifically, we focus on the computational advantages of geminal-based methods over standard approaches and identify the critical aspects of OPV development. Examples are reliable and efficient computations of orbital energies, electronic spectra, and van der Waals interactions. Geminal-based models can also be combined with quantum embedding techniques and a quantum information analysis of orbital interactions to gain a fundamental understanding of the electronic structures and properties of realistic OPV building blocks. Furthermore, other organic components present in, for instance, dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) represent another promising scope of application. Finally, we provide numerical examples predicting the properties of a small building block of OPV components and two carbazole-based dyes proposed as possible DSSC sensitizers.

Benchmarking ionization potentials using the simple pCCD model

The electron-detachment energy is measured by the ionization potential (IP). As a result, it is a fundamental, observable and important molecular electronic signature in photoelectron spectroscopy. A precise theoretical prediction of electron-detachment energies or ionization potentials is essential for organic optoelectronic systems like transistors, solar cells, or light-emitting diodes. In this work, we benchmark the performance of the recently presented IP variant of the equation-of-motion pair coupled cluster doubles (IP-EOM-pCCD) model to determine IPs. Specifically, the predicted ionization energies are compared to experimental results and higher-order coupled cluster theories based on statistically assessing 201 electron-detached states of 41 organic molecules for three different molecular orbital basis sets and two sets of particle-hole operators. While IP-EOM-pCCD features a reasonable spread and skewness of ionization energies, its mean error and standard deviation differ by up to 1.5 eV from reference data. Our study, thus, highlights the importance of dynamical correlation to reliably predict IPs from a pCCD reference function in small organic molecules.

Geminal-based electronic structure methods in quantum chemistry. Toward a geminal model chemistry

In this review, we discuss the recent progress in developing geminal-based theories for challenging problems in quantum chemistry. Specifically, we focus on the antisymmetrized geminal power, generalized valence bond, antisymmetrized product of strongly orthogonal geminals, singlet-type orthogonal geminals, the antisymmetric product of 1-reference orbital geminal, also known as the pair coupled cluster doubles ansatz, and geminals constructed from Richardson-Gaudin states. Furthermore, we review various corrections to account for the missing dynamical correlation effects in geminal models and possible extensions to target electronically excited states and open-shell species. Finally, we discuss some numerical examples and present-day challenges for geminal-based models, including a quantitative and qualitative analysis of wave functions, and software availability.

Resolving the π-assisted U-N σf-bond formation using quantum information theory

We model the potential energy profiles of the UO₂ (NCO)Cl₂^- → NUOCl₂^- + CO₂ reaction pathway [Y. Gong, V. Vallet, M. del Carmen Michelini, D. Rios and J. K. Gibson, J. Phys. Chem. A, 2014, 118, 325-330] using different pair coupled-cluster doubles (pCCD) methods. Specifically, we focus on pCCD and pCCD-tailored coupled cluster models in predicting relative energies for the various intermediates and transition states along the reaction coordinate. Furthermore, we augment our study on energetics with an orbital-pair correlation analysis of the complete reaction pathway that features two distinct paths. Our analysis of orbital correlations sheds new light on the formation and breaking of respective bonds between the uranium, oxygen, and nitrogen atoms along the reaction coordinates where the "yl" bond is broken and a nitrido compound formed. Specifically, the strengthening of the U-N σ_f-bond is assisted by a π-type interaction that is delocalized over the C-N-U backbone of the UO₂ (NCO)Cl₂^- complex.

Unrestricted treatment for the direct variational determination of the two-electron reduced density matrix for doubly occupied-configuration-interaction wave functions

This work extends to the unrestricted orbital approach the procedure described in our previous report [Alcoba et al., J. Chem. Phys. 148, 024105 (2018)] for determining variationally the two-electron reduced density matrix arising from doubly occupied-configuration-interaction wave functions by imposing two- and three-index N-representability conditions. An analysis of the numerical results obtained in selected systems, from both restricted and unrestricted treatments, allows one to assess the performance of these methodologies as well as to show the influence of the P, Q, G, T1, and T2 positivity conditions. We highlight the satisfactory results obtained within the unrestricted scheme.