A study of the ionisation and excitation energies of core electrons using a unitary group adapted state universal approach

A systematic improvement to UGA-SSMRCCSD equations and its implication for potential energy curves

The Unitary Group Adaptation (UGA) offers a very compact and efficient spin adaptation strategy for any spin-free Hamiltonian in a many body framework. Our use of UGA in the context of state-specific (SS) Jeziorski-Monkhorst Ansatz based multireference coupled cluster (MRCC) theory obviates the non-commutativity between the spin-free cluster operators via a normal ordered exponential parametrization in the wave operator. A previous formulation of UGA-SSMRCC by us [R. Maitra, D. Sinha, and D. Mukherjee, J. Chem. Phys. 137, 024105 (2012)], using the same ansatz, employed certain sufficiency conditions to reach the final working equations, which cannot be improved systematically. In this article, we will present a more rigorous formulation that follows from an exact factorization of the unlinked terms of the Bloch equation, resulting in equations on which a hierarchy of approximations can be systematically performed on the emergent additional terms. This derivation was shown in our recent article [D. Chakravarti, S. Sen, and D. Mukherjee, Mol. Phys. 119, e1979676 (2021)] in the context of a single open shell CC formalism and was applied to spectroscopic energy differences where the contribution of the new terms was found to be of the order of ∼0.001 eV for ionization potential, electron affinity, and excitation energy. In the current work, we will present a comparison between the earlier and current formulations via both a theoretical analysis and a numerical demonstration of the dramatic effect of the additional terms brought in by the factorization on potential energy curves. The contribution of such terms was found to gain importance with an increase in the number of singly occupied active orbitals in the model space functions.

A study of core-excited states of organic molecules computed with the generalized active space driven similarity renormalization group

This work examines the accuracy and precision of x-ray absorption spectra computed with a multireference approach that combines generalized active space (GAS) references with the driven similarity renormalization group (DSRG). We employ the x-ray absorption benchmark of organic molecule (XABOOM) set, consisting of 116 transitions from mostly organic molecules [Fransson et al., J. Chem. Theory Comput. 17, 1618 (2021)]. Several approximations to a full-valence active space are examined and benchmarked. Absolute excitation energies and intensities computed with the GAS-DSRG truncated to second-order in perturbation theory are found to systematically underestimate experimental and reference theoretical values. Third-order perturbative corrections significantly improve the accuracy of GAS-DSRG absolute excitation energies, bringing the mean absolute deviation from experimental values down to 0.32 eV. The ozone molecule and glyoxylic acid are particularly challenging for second-order perturbation theory and are examined in detail to assess the importance of active space truncation and intruder states.

Accurate core excitation and ionization energies from a state-specific coupled-cluster singles and doubles approach

We investigate the use of orbital-optimized references in conjunction with single-reference coupled-cluster theory with single and double substitutions (CCSD) for the study of core excitations and ionizations of 18 small organic molecules, without the use of response theory or equation-of-motion (EOM) formalisms. Three schemes are employed to successfully address the convergence difficulties associated with the coupled-cluster equations, and the spin contamination resulting from the use of a spin symmetry-broken reference, in the case of excitations. In order to gauge the inherent potential of the methods studied, an effort is made to provide reasonable basis set limit estimates for the transition energies. Overall, we find that the two best-performing schemes studied here for ΔCCSD are capable of predicting excitation and ionization energies with errors comparable to experimental accuracies. The proposed ΔCCSD schemes reduces statistical errors against experimental excitation energies by more than a factor of two when compared to the frozen-core core-valence separated (FC-CVS) EOM-CCSD approach - a successful variant of EOM-CCSD tailored towards core excitations.

Simulating X-ray photoelectron spectra with strong electron correlation using multireference algebraic diagrammatic construction theory

A new theoretical approach for the simulations of X-ray photoelectron spectra of strongly correlated molecular systems that combines multireference algebraic diagrammatic construction theory (MR-ADC) with a core–valence separation (CVS) technique.

Theoretical Calculation of Core-Excited States along Dissociative Pathways beyond Second-Order Perturbation Theory

We extend the multireference driven similarity renormalization (MR-DSRG) method to compute core-excited states by combining it with a GASSCF treatment of orbital relaxation and static electron correlation effects. We consider MR-DSRG treatments of dynamical correlation truncated at the level of perturbation theory (DSRG-MRPT2/3) and iterative linearized approximations with one- and two-body operators [MR-LDSRG(2)] in combination with a spin-free exact-two-component (X2C) one-electron treatment of scalar relativistic effects. This approach is calibrated and tested on a series of 16 core-excited states of five closed- and open-shell diatomic molecules containing first-row elements (C, N, and O). All GASSCF-MR-DSRG theories show excellent agreement with experimental adiabatic transitions energies, with mean absolute errors ranging between 0.17 and 0.35 eV, even for the challenging partially doubly excited states of the N₂⁺ molecule. The vibrational structure of all these transitions, obtained from using a full potential energy scan, shows a mean absolute error as low as 25 meV for DSRG-MRPT2 and 12/13 meV for DSRG-MRPT3 and MR-LDSRG(2). We generally find that a treatment of dynamical correlation that goes beyond the second-order level in perturbation theory improves the accuracy of the potential energy surface, especially in the bond-dissociation region.

Toward Quantum Computing for High-Energy Excited States in Molecular Systems: Quantum Phase Estimations of Core-Level States

This paper explores the utility of the quantum phase estimation (QPE) algorithm in calculating high-energy excited states characterized by the promotion of electrons occupying core-level shells. These states have been intensively studied over the last few decades, especially in supporting the experimental effort at light sources. Results obtained with QPE are compared with various high-accuracy many-body techniques developed to describe core-level states. The feasibility of the quantum phase estimator in identifying classes of challenging shake-up states characterized by the presence of higher-order excitation effects is discussed. We also demonstrate the utility of the QPE algorithm in targeting excitations from specific centers in a molecule. Lastly, we discuss how the lowest-order Trotter formula can be applied to reducing the complexity of the ansatz without affecting the error.

Green's Function Coupled-Cluster Approach: Simulating Photoelectron Spectra for Realistic Molecular Systems

In this paper, we present an efficient implementation for the analytical energy-dependent Green's function coupled-cluster with singles and doubles (GFCCSD) approach with our first practice being computing spectral functions of realistic molecular systems. Because of its algebraic structure, the presented method is highly scalable and is capable of computing spectral function for a given molecular system in any energy region. Several typical examples have been given to demonstrate its capability of computing spectral functions not only in the valence band but also in the core-level energy region. Satellite peaks have been observed in the inner valence band and core-level energy region where a many-body effect becomes significant and the single particle picture of ionization often breaks down. The accuracy test has been carried out by extensively comparing the computed spectral functions by our GFCCSD method with experimental photoelectron spectra as well as the theoretical ionization potentials obtained from other methods. It turns out the GFCCSD method is able to provide a qualitative or semiquantitative level of description of ionization processes in both the core and valence regimes. To significantly improve the GFCCSD results for the main ionic states, a larger basis set can usually be employed, whereas the improvement of the GFCCSD results for the satellite states needs higher-order many-body terms to be included in the GFCC implementation.