A numerically stable procedure for calculating M�ller-Plesset energy derivatives, derived using the theory of Lagrangians

Abstract

When Moller-Plesset energy derivatives are determined in the canonical Hartree-Fock basis, singularities or instabilities may arise due to degeneracies among the occupied or unoccupied orbitals. If a non-canonical basis is used these singularities disappear. Numerically stable expressions are presented for the molecular gradient and Hessian of the second-order Moller-Plesset energy, obtained by differentiating a fully variational Lagrangian of the energy constructed in a non-canonical representation. By using a non-canonical representation, singularities and instabilities are avoided, and the variational property of the Lagrangian ensures that Wigner's 2n + 1 rule is satisfied for the orbital derivatives and that the multipliers satisfy the stronger 2n + 2 rule. It is shown that the most expensive step in the calculation of the Hessian scales as Mn 4o, where M is the number of independent Cartesian distortions, n the total number of orbitals, and o the number of occupied orbitals.