Coupled-cluster method with optimized reference state

Abstract

We propose a variant of the coupled-cluster (CC) method in which spin orbitals of the reference Slater determinant are optimized in a self-consistent way. This approach is a reformulation of the Brueckner–Hartree–Fock (BHF) method used in nuclear physics and known also as the exact SCF method. We discuss the use of the reference-state determinants built of HF, natural, and Brueckner spin orbitals, with relations among them investigated in terms of the many-body perturbation theory (MBPT). It is shown that the Brueckner spin orbitals emerge as a convenient basis set in the coupled-cluster method and equations that determine these spin orbitals are found. The Brueckner spin orbitals can be calculated as eigenvectors of a certain Hermitian one-electron operator which has a form of the Hartree–Fock operator plus a “correlation potential” depending linearly on two- and three- electron cluster amplitudes. The usual decoupling scheme in the coupled-cluster method leads to a hierarchy of approximations; in the first nontrivial one the three-electron cluster amplitudes are neglected, and the two-electron ones are determined by solving Cižek's CPMET equations. We also analyze the problem of spatial, spin, and time-reversal symmertry in the CC and BHF methods. If (and only if) the reference-state determinant belongs to a one-dimensional representation of a certain symmetry subgroup of the system, the CC operator and the BHF one-electron operator are invariant with respect to this subgroup. Thus the restricted (entirely symmetry-adapted) version of the BHF method can be formulated only for the closed-shell systems. This is done for the above-mentioned approximate BHF method. We discuss also the usefulness of the BHF method in application to extended metallic systems.