The X40x10 Halogen Bonding Benchmark Revisited: Surprising Importance of (n-1)d Subvalence Correlation

We have re-evaluated the X40x10 benchmark for halogen bonding using conventional and explicitly correlated coupled cluster methods. For the aromatic dimers at small separation, improved CCSD(T)–MP2 “high-level corrections” (HLCs) cause substantial reductions in the dissociation energy. For the bromine and iodine species, (n-1)d subvalence correlation increases dissociation energies, and turns out to be more important for noncovalent interactions than is generally realized. As in previous studies, we find that the most efficient way to obtain HLCs is to combine (T) from conventional CCSD(T) calculations with explicitly correlated CCSD-F12–MP2-F12 differences.