Evgeny Epifanovsky

New implementation of high‐level correlated methods using a general block tensor library for high‐performance electronic structure calculations

This article presents an open‐source object‐oriented C++ library of classes and routines to perform tensor algebra. The primary purpose of the library is to enable post‐Hartree–Fock electronic structure methods; however, the code is general enough to be applicable in other areas of physical and computational sciences. The library supports tensors of arbitrary order (dimensionality), size, and symmetry. Implemented data structures and algorithms operate on large tensors by splitting them into smaller blocks, storing them both in core memory and in files on disk, and applying divide‐and‐conquer‐type parallel algorithms to perform tensor algebra. The library offers a set of general tensor symmetry algorithms and a full implementation of tensor symmetries typically found in electronic structure theory: permutational, spin, and molecular point group symmetry. The Q‐Chem electronic structure software uses this library to drive coupled‐cluster, equation‐of‐motion, and algebraic‐diagrammatic construction methods.

Investigating excited electronic states using the algebraic diagrammatic construction (ADC) approach of the polarisation propagator

The development of reliable theoretical methods and the provision of efficient computer programs for the investigation of optical spectra and photochemistry of large molecules in general is one of the most important tasks of contemporary theoretical chemistry. Here, we present an overview of the current features of our implementation of the algebraic diagrammatic construction scheme of the polarisation propagator, which is a versatile and robust approach for the theoretical investigation of excited states and their properties.

Products of the benzene + O(3P) reaction.

The gas-phase reaction of benzene with O((3)P) is of considerable interest for modeling of aromatic oxidation, and also because there exist fundamental questions concerning the prominence of intersystem crossing in the reaction. While its overall rate constant has been studied extensively, there are still significant uncertainties in the product distribution. The reaction proceeds mainly through the addition of the O atom to benzene, forming an initial triplet diradical adduct, which can either dissociate to form the phenoxy radical and H atom or undergo intersystem crossing onto a singlet surface, followed by a multiplicity of internal isomerizations, leading to several possible reaction products. In this work, we examined the product branching ratios of the reaction between benzene and O((3)P) over the temperature range 300-1000 K and pressure range 1-10 Torr. The reactions were initiated by pulsed-laser photolysis of NO(2) in the presence of benzene and helium buffer in a slow-flow reactor, and reaction products were identified by using the multiplexed chemical kinetics photoionization mass spectrometer operating at the Advanced Light Source (ALS) of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Phenol and phenoxy radical were detected and quantified. Cyclopentadiene and cyclopentadienyl radical were directly identified for the first time. Finally, ab initio calculations and master equation/RRKM modeling were used to reproduce the experimental branching ratios, yielding pressure-dependent rate expressions for the reaction channels, including phenoxy + H, phenol, cyclopentadiene + CO, which are proposed for kinetic modeling of benzene oxidation.

Complex absorbing potentials within EOM-CC family of methods: Theory, implementation, and benchmarks

A production-level implementation of equation-of-motion coupled-cluster singles and doubles (EOM-CCSD) for electron attachment and excitation energies augmented by a complex absorbing potential (CAP) is presented. The new method enables the treatment of metastable states within the EOM-CC formalism in a similar manner as bound states. The numeric performance of the method and the sensitivity of resonance positions and lifetimes to the CAP parameters and the choice of one-electron basis set are investigated. A protocol for studying molecular shape resonances based on the use of standard basis sets and a universal criterion for choosing the CAP parameters are presented. Our results for a variety of π(*) shape resonances of small to medium-size molecules demonstrate that CAP-augmented EOM-CCSD is competitive relative to other theoretical approaches for the treatment of resonances and is often able to reproduce experimental results.

General implementation of the resolution-of-the-identity and Cholesky representations of electron repulsion integrals within coupled-cluster and equation-of-motion methods: Theory and benchmarks

We present a general implementation of the resolution-of-the-identity (RI) and Cholesky decomposition (CD) representations of electron repulsion integrals within the coupled-cluster with single and double substitutions (CCSD) and equation-of-motion (EOM) family of methods. The CCSD and EOM-CCSD equations are rewritten to eliminate the storage of the largest four-index intermediates leading to a significant reduction in disk storage requirements, reduced I/O penalties, and, as a result, improved parallel performance. In CCSD, the number of rate-determining contractions is also reduced; however, in EOM the number of operations is increased because the transformed integrals, which are computed once in the canonical implementation, need to be reassembled at each Davidson iteration. Nevertheless, for large jobs the effect of the increased number of rate-determining contractions is surpassed by the significantly reduced memory and disk usage leading to a considerable speed-up. Overall, for medium-size examples, RI/CD CCSD calculations are approximately 40% faster compared with the canonical implementation, whereas timings of EOM calculations are reduced by a factor of two. More significant speed-ups are obtained in larger bases, i.e., more than a two-fold speed-up for CCSD and almost five-fold speed-up for EOM-EE-CCSD in cc-pVTZ. Even more considerable speedups (6-7-fold) are achieved by combining RI/CD with the frozen natural orbitals approach. The numeric accuracy of RI/CD approaches is benchmarked with an emphasis on energy differences. Errors in EOM excitation, ionization, and electron-attachment energies are less than 0.001 eV with typical RI bases and with a 10(-4) threshold in CD. Errors with 10(-2) and 10(-3) thresholds, which afford more significant computational savings, are less than 0.04 and 0.008 eV, respectively.

A Fresh Look at Resonances and Complex Absorbing Potentials: Density Matrix-Based Approach.

A new strategy of using complex absorbing potentials (CAPs) within electronic structure calculations of metastable electronic states, which are ubiquitous in chemistry and physics, is presented. The stumbling block in numerical applications of CAPs is the necessity to optimize the CAP strength for each system, state, and one-electron basis set, while there is no clear metric to assess the quality of the results and no simple algorithm of achieving numerical convergence. By analyzing the behavior of resonance wave functions, we found that robust results can be obtained when considering fully stabilized resonance states characterized by constant density at large η (parameter determining the CAP strength). Then the perturbation due to the finite-strength CAP can be removed by a simple energy correction derived from energy decomposition analysis and response theory. The utility of this approach is illustrated by CAP-augmented calculations of several shape resonances using EOM-EA-CCSD with standard Gaussian basis sets.

Complex-scaled equation-of-motion coupled-cluster method with single and double substitutions for autoionizing excited states: theory, implementation, and examples.

Theory and implementation of complex-scaled variant of equation-of-motion coupled-cluster method for excitation energies with single and double substitutions (EOM-EE-CCSD) is presented. The complex-scaling formalism extends the EOM-EE-CCSD model to resonance states, i.e., excited states that are metastable with respect to electron ejection. The method is applied to Feshbach resonances in atomic systems (He, H(-), and Be). The dependence of the results on one-electron basis set is quantified and analyzed. Energy decomposition and wave function analysis reveal that the origin of the dependence is in electron correlation, which is essential for the lifetime of Feshbach resonances. It is found that one-electron basis should be sufficiently flexible to describe radial and angular electron correlation in a balanced fashion and at different values of the scaling parameter, θ. Standard basis sets that are optimized for not-complex-scaled calculations (θ = 0) are not sufficiently flexible to describe the θ-dependence of the wave functions even when heavily augmented by additional sets.

Quantum Chemical Benchmark Studies of the Electronic Properties of the Green Fluorescent Protein Chromophore: 2. Cis-Trans Isomerization in Water.

We present quantum chemical calculations of the properties of the anionic form of the green fluorescent protein (GFP) chromophore that can be directly compared to the results of experimental measurements: the cis-trans isomerization energy profile in water. Calculations of the cis-trans chromophore isomerization pathway in the gas phase and in water reveal a problematic behavior of density functional theory and scaled opposite-spin-MP2 due to the multiconfigurational character of the wave function at twisted geometries. The solvent effects treated with the continuum solvation models, as well as with the water cluster model, are found to be important and can reduce the activation energy by more than 10 kcal/mol. Strong solvent effects are explained by the change in charge localization patterns along the isomerization coordinate. At the equilibrium, the negative charge is almost equally delocalized between the phenyl and imidazolin rings due to the interaction of two resonance structures, whereas at the transition state the charge is localized on the imidazolin moiety. Our best estimate of the barrier obtained in cluster calculations employing the effective fragment potential-based quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics method with the complete active space self-consistent field description of the chromophore augmented by perturbation theory correction and the TIP3P water model is 14.8 kcal/mol, which is in excellent agreement with the experimental value of 15.4 kcal/mol. This result helps to resolve previously reported disagreements between experimental measurements and theoretical estimates.

Four Bases Score a Run: Ab Initio Calculations Quantify a Cooperative Effect of H‑Bonding and π‑Stacking on the Ionization Energy of Adenine in the AATT Tetramer

Benchmark calculations of the lowest ionized state of the (A:T)2 (mixed adenine-thymine) cluster at the geometry taken from the DNA X-ray structure are presented. Vertical ionization energies (IEs) computed by the equation-of-motion coupled-cluster method with single and double substitutions are reported and analyzed. The shift in IE relative to the monomer (A) is -0.7 eV. The performance of the widely used B3LYP, ωB97X-D, and M06-2X functionals with respect to their ability to describe energetics and the character (localization versus delocalization) of the ionized states is also investigated. The shifts in IEs caused by H-bonding and stacking interactions are analyzed in terms of additive versus cooperative effects. It is found that the cooperative effect accounts for more than 20% of the shift in IE relative to the monomer. The cooperative effect and, consequently, the magnitude of the shift are well reproduced by the hybrid quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics scheme in which neutral thymine bases are represented by point charges.

Spin-orbit couplings within the equation-of-motion coupled-cluster framework: Theory, implementation, and benchmark calculations

We present a formalism and an implementation for calculating spin-orbit couplings (SOCs) within the EOM-CCSD (equation-of-motion coupled-cluster with single and double substitutions) approach. The following variants of EOM-CCSD are considered: EOM-CCSD for excitation energies (EOM-EE-CCSD), EOM-CCSD with spin-flip (EOM-SF-CCSD), EOM-CCSD for ionization potentials (EOM-IP-CCSD) and electron attachment (EOM-EA-CCSD). We employ a perturbative approach in which the SOCs are computed as matrix elements of the respective part of the Breit-Pauli Hamiltonian using zeroth-order non-relativistic wave functions. We follow the expectation-value approach rather than the response-theory formulation for property calculations. Both the full two-electron treatment and the mean-field approximation (a partial account of the two-electron contributions) have been implemented and benchmarked using several small molecules containing elements up to the fourth row of the periodic table. The benchmark results show the excellent performance of the perturbative treatment and the mean-field approximation. When used with an appropriate basis set, the errors with respect to experiment are below 5% for the considered examples. The findings regarding basis-set requirements are in agreement with previous studies. The impact of different correlation treatment in zeroth-order wave functions is analyzed. Overall, the EOM-IP-CCSD, EOM-EA-CCSD, EOM-EE-CCSD, and EOM-SF-CCSD wave functions yield SOCs that agree well with each other (and with the experimental values when available). Using an EOM-CCSD approach that provides a more balanced description of the target states yields more accurate results.