Low-Cost Molecular Excited States from a State-Averaged Resonating Hartree-Fock Approach

21 March 2019, Version 1
This content is a preprint and has not undergone peer review at the time of posting.

Abstract

Quantum chemistry methods that describe excited states on the same footing as the ground state are generally scarce. In previous work, Gill et al. (J. Phys. Chem. A 112, 13164 (2008)) and later Sundstrom and Head-Gordon (J. Chem. Phys. 140, 114103 (2014)) considered excited states resulting from a non-orthogonal configuration interaction (NOCI) on stationary solutions of the Hartree–Fock equations. We build upon those contributions and present the state-averaged resonating Hartree–Fock (sa-ResHF) method, which differs from NOCI in that spin-projection and orbital relaxation effects are incorporated from the onset. Our results in a set of small molecules (alanine, formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, acetone, formamide, and ethylene) suggest that sa-ResHF excitation energies are a notable improvement over configuration interaction singles (CIS), at a mean-field computational cost. The orbital relaxation in sa-ResHF, in the presence of a spin-projection operator, generally results in excitation energies that are closer to the experimental values than the corresponding NOCI ones.

Keywords

Hartree-Fock
Non-orthogonal

Comments

Comments are not moderated before they are posted, but they can be removed by the site moderators if they are found to be in contravention of our Commenting Policy [opens in a new tab] - please read this policy before you post. Comments should be used for scholarly discussion of the content in question. You can find more information about how to use the commenting feature here [opens in a new tab] .
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy [opens in a new tab] and Terms of Service [opens in a new tab] apply.