Efficient and accurate treatment of weak pairs in local CCSD(T) calculations. II. Beyond the ring approximation.

Abstract

In order to arrive at linear scaling of the computational cost with molecular size, local coupled cluster methods discriminate pairs of local molecular orbitals according to the spatial separation R of the latter. Only strong pairs are treated at the full coupled cluster level, whereas for weak pairs a lower level of theory (usually Møller-Plesset perturbation theory of second order, MP2) is used. Yet an MP2 treatment of weak pairs is inadequate in certain situations (for example, for describing π-stacking), which calls for an improved but still inexpensive method for dealing with the weak pairs. In a previous contribution, we proposed as a substituent for MP2 the LrCCD3 method, which is based on ring coupled cluster doubles (ring-CCD) and includes all third-order diagrams with energy contributions decaying not quicker than R(-6). In the present work, we explore a still more accurate method, which is based on the same principles. It turned out to be essential to abandon the restriction to ring-CCD, i.e., to include further CCD diagrams beyond the ring approximation. The occurring intermediates turn out to be formally very similar to LMP2 density matrices, such that an efficient evaluation of these non-ring CCD diagrams is possible. Furthermore, a computationally cheap a posteriori estimate for the fourth-order singles contribution to the weak pair energy, which also exhibits a decay behavior of R(-6), is introduced. The resulting method, denoted as LCCD[S]-R(-6), indeed provides a substantial improvement in accuracy over the previous LrCCD3 method at a relatively modest additional computational cost.