To follow up on the unexpectedly-good performance of coupled-cluster models with approx- imate inclusion of 3-body clusters [J. Chem. Phys. 151, 064102 (2019)] we performed a more complete assessment of the 3CC method [J. Chem. Phys. 125, 204105 (2006)] for accurate computational thermochemistry in the standard HEAT framework. New spin- integrated implementation of the 3CC method applicable to closed- and open-shell systems utilizes a new automated toolchain for derivation, optimization, and evaluation of operator algebra in many-body electronic structure. We found that with a double-zeta basis set the 3CC correlation energies and their atomization energy contributions are almost always more accurate (with respect to the CCSDTQ reference) than the CCSDT model as well as the standard CCSD(T) model. The mean errors in { 3CC, CCSDT, and CCSD(T) } electronic (per valence electron) and atomization energies were {23, 69, 125} μEh/e and {0.39, 1.92, 2.57} kJ/mol, respectively. The significant and systematic reduction of the error by the 3CC method and its lower cost than CCSDT suggests it as a viable candidate for post-CCSD(T) thermochemistry application. / Doctor of Philosophy / Stepping into the information age, the computing power has rapidly grown over the last half century. Solving chemical problems on computers has improved lives by reducing the cost and time of researching critical technologies. Scientific research is evolving and experimental finding are now supported with a computational model. Doing chemistry on computers requires quantum simulations, which is essentially solving the Schr ̈odinger equation on a computer that simulates a wave function for all the electrons in a system. Different models are built based on how these inter electronic interactions are treated. To predict results with accuracy on par with the experimental findings requires using higher-order wave functions methods.These are computationally expensive and often not practical. The lower-order methods that are easy to implement can be found in all quantum chemistry software packages. On the other hand, the higher-order methods are laborious and error prone to implement manually due to the sheer complexity of theory. Debugging such implementations often requires a lot of effort with the uncertainty in returns. To solve this problem, we implemented a second-quantization toolkit (SeQuant version 2.0) that derives many-body methods, specifically the general-order coupled cluster (CC) model. The CC model is systematically improvable and accurate. One such CC model, the CCSD(T), has been called the gold standard in quantum chemistry. For compactness, these equations are usually derived in their spin-orbital form. The evaluation and storage cost of these methods is reduced up to four-fold by transforming the spin-orbital expressions to a spin-traced form. In this work, the spin-tracing algorithms are described in detail. The general-order coupled cluster approach is used to derive the internally corrected approximate coupled cluster methods. These methods improve the accuracy of a model at a reduced cost. For small molecules, it was observed that the spin-traced evaluation was over three times faster than spin-orbital coupled cluster. To further reduce the cost of calculations, we added explicit correlation to our CC models. These methods improved the quality of our results with a modest increase in the computational cost.

In the search for molecular species in the interstellar medium and extraterrestrial planetary atmospheres, theoretical methods continue to be an invaluable tool to astronomically minded chemists. Using state-of-the art methods, this doctoral work characterizes the electronically excited states of interstellar radicals, cations, and even rare anions and also predicts the gas phase fundamental vibrational frequencies of the cis and trans-HOCO radicals, as well as the cis-HOCO anion. First, open-shell coupled cluster methods of singles and doubles (CCSD) and singles and doubles with triples-inclusion (CC3) are tested on the C₂H and C₄H radicals. The significant double-excitation character, as well as the quartet multiplicity of some states yields inaccurate excitation energies and large spin contamination with CCSD. CC3 somewhat improves this for select states, but discrepancies between CC and multireference results for certain states exist and likely arise from the lack of spin adaptation in conventional spin-orbital CC. Next, coupled-cluster methods predict the presence of an excited state of the closed-shell allyl cation and its related H₂CCCHCH₂⁺ cousin at 443 nm near an unidentified laboratory peak at 442.9 nm which is also close to one of the largest unattributed interstellar absorption features. Additionally, the dipole moments, electron binding energies, and excited states of neutral radicals and corresponding closed-shell anions of interstellar interest are also computed. These are calibrated against experimental data for CH₂CN⁻ and CH₂CHO⁻. Since coupled cluster theory closely reproduces the known experimental data, dipole-bound excited states for eight previously unknown anions are predicted: CH2SiN⁻ , SiH₂CN⁻, CH₂SiHO⁻, SiN⁻, CCOH⁻, HCCO⁻, SiCCN⁻, and SiNC⁻. In addition, we predict the existence of one rare valence-bound excited state of CH₂SiN⁻ and also SiCCN⁻ as well as even rarer two valence-bound states of CCSiN⁻. Lastly, the reaction of CO + OH and its transient potential intermediate, the HOCO radical, may be responsible for the regeneration of CO₂ in the Martian atmosphere, but past spectroscopic observations have not produced a full gas-phase set of the fundamental vibrational frequencies of the HOCO radical. Using established, highly-accurate quantum chemical coupled cluster tech- niques and quartic force fields, all six fundamental vibrational frequencies for 1 ²A′ cis and trans-HOCO and 1 ¹A′ cis-HOCO⁻ are computed in the gas phase. / Ph. D.

Accurate correlated electronic structure methods involve a significant amount of computations and can be only employed to small molecular systems. For example, the coupled-cluster singles, doubles, and perturbative triples model (CCSD(T)), which is known as the ``gold standard" of quantum chemistry for its accuracy, usually can treat molecules with 20-30 atoms. To extend the reach of accurate correlated electronic structure methods to larger molecular systems, we work towards two directions: parallel computing and reduced-cost/scaling approaches. Parallel computing can utilize more computational resources to handle systems that demand more substantial computational efforts. Reduced-cost/scaling approaches, which introduce approximations to the existing electronic structure methods, can significantly reduce the amount of computation and storage requirements. In this work, we introduce a new distributed-memory massively parallel implementation of standard and explicitly correlated (F12) coupled-cluster singles and doubles (CCSD) with canonical bigO{N^6} computational complexity ( C. Peng, J. A. Calvin, F. Pavov{s}evi'c, J. Zhang, and E. F. Valeev, textit{J. Phys. Chem. A} 2016, textbf{120}, 10231.), based on the TiledArray tensor framework. Excellent strong scaling is demonstrated on a multi-core shared-memory computer, a commodity distributed-memory computer, and a national-scale supercomputer. We also present a distributed-memory implementation of the density-fitting (DF) based CCSD(T) method. (C. Peng, J. A. Calvin, and E. F. Valeev, textit{in preparation for submission}) An improved parallel DF-CCSD is presented utilizing lazy evaluation for tensors with more than two unoccupied indices, which makes the DF-CCSD storage requirements always smaller than those of the non-iterative triples correction (T). Excellent strong scaling is observed on both shared-memory and distributed-memory computers equipped with conventional Intel Xeon processors and the Intel Xeon Phi (Knights Landing) processors. With the new implementation, the CCSD(T) energies can be evaluated for systems containing 200 electrons and 1000 basis functions in a few days using a small size commodity cluster, with even more massive computations possible on leadership-class computing resources. The inclusion of F12 correction to the CCSD(T) method makes it converge to basis set limit much more rapidly. The large-scale parallel explicitly correlated coupled-cluster program makes the accurate estimation of the coupled-cluster basis set limit for molecules with 20 or more atoms a routine. Thus, it can be used rigorously to test the emerging reduced-scaling coupled-cluster approaches. Moreover, we extend the pair natural orbital (PNO) approach to excited states through the equation-of-motion coupled cluster singles and doubles (EOM-CCSD) method. (C. Peng, M. C. Clement, and E. F. Valeev, textit{submitted}) We simulate the PNO-EOM-CCSD method using an existing massively parallel canonical EOM-CCSD program. We propose the use of state-averaged PNOs, which are generated from the average of the pair density of excited states, to span the PNO space of all the excited states. The doubles amplitudes in the CIS(D) method are used to compute the state-averaged pair density of excited states. The issue of incorrect states in the state-averaged pair density, caused by an energy reordering of excited states between the CIS(D) and EOM-CCSD, is resolved by simply computing more states than desired. We find that with a truncation threshold of $10^{-7}$, the truncation error for the excitation energy is already below 0.02 eV for the systems tested, while the average number of PNOs is reduced to 50-70 per pair. The accuracy of the PNO-EOM-CCSD method on local, Rydberg and charge transfer states is also investigated. / Ph. D.

In dieser Arbeit werden Algorithmen für die Berechnung elektronischer Korrelations- und Anregungsenergien mittels der Coupled-Cluster Methode auf adaptiven Gittern entwickelt und implementiert. Die jeweiligen Funktionen und Operatoren werden adaptiv durch Multiskalenanalyse dargestellt, was eine Basissatz unabängige Beschreibung mit kontrollierter numerischer Genauigkeit ermöglicht. Gleichungen für die Coupled-Cluster Methode werden in einem verallgemeinerten Rahmen, unabhängig von virtuellen Orbitalen und globalen Basissätzen, neu formuliert. Hierzu werden die amplitudengewichteten Anregungen in virtuelle Orbitale ersetzt durch Anregungen in n-Elektronenfunktionen, welche durch Gleichungen im n-Elektronen Ortsraum bestimmt sind. Die erhaltenen Gleichungen können, analog zur Basissatz abh¨angigen Form, mit leicht angepasster Interpretation diagrammatisch dargestellt werden. Aufgrund des singulären Coulomb Potentials werden die Arbeitsgleichungen mit einem explizit korrelierten Ansatz regularisiert. Coupled-Cluster singles mit genäherten doubles (CC2) und ähnliche Modelle werden, für geschlossenschalige Systeme und in regularisierter Form, in die MADNESS Bibliothek (eine allgemeine Bibliothek zur Darstellung von Funktionen und Operatoren mittels Multiskalenanalyse) implementiert. Mit der vorgestellten Methode können elektronische CC2 Paarkorrelationsenergien und Anregungsenergien mit bestimmter numerischer Genauigkeit unabhängig von globalen Basissätzen berechnet werden, was anhand von kleinen Molekülen verifiziert wird / In this work algorithms for the computation of electronic correlation and excitation energies with the Coupled-Cluster method on adaptive grids are developed and implemented. The corresponding functions and operators are adaptively represented with multiresolution analysis allowing a basis-set independent description with controlled numerical accuracy. Equations for the coupled-cluster model are reformulated in a generalized framework independent of virtual orbitals and global basis-sets. For this, the amplitude weighted excitations into virtuals are replaced by excitations into n-electron functions which are determined by projected equations in the n-electron position space. The resulting equations can be represented diagrammatically analogous to basis-set dependent approaches with slightly adjusted rules of interpretation. Due to the singular Coulomb potential, the working equations are regularized with an explicitly correlated ansatz. Coupled-cluster singles with approximate doubles (CC2) and similar models are implemented for closed-shell systems and in regularized form into the MADNESS library (a general library for the representation of functions and operators with multiresolution analysis). With the presented approach electronic CC2 pair-correlation energies and excitation energies can be computed with definite numerical accuracy and without dependence on global basis sets, which is verified on small molecules.

Many-Body Perturbation Theory is put to test as a method for reliable calculations of the electron-electron interaction in two-dimensional quantum dots. We show that second order correlation gives qualitative agreement with experiments on a level which was not found within the Hartree-Fock description. For weaker confinements, the second order correction is shown to be insufficient and higher order contributions must be taken into account. We demonstrate that all order Many-Body Perturbation Theory in the form of the Coupled Cluster Singles and Doubles method yields very reliable results for confinements close to those estimated from experimental data. The possibility to use very large basis sets is shown to be a major advantage compared to Full Configuration Interaction approaches, especially for more than five confined electrons. Also, the possibility to utilize two-electron correlation in combination with tailor made potentials to achieve useful properties is explored. In the case of a two-dimensional quantum dot molecule we vary the interdot distance, and in the case of a two-dimensional quantum ring we vary the ring radius, in order to alter the spectra. In the latter case we demonstrate that correlation in combination with electromagnetic pulses can be used for the realization of quantum logical gates. / At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 5: Manuscript.

Extensive theoretical studies on the ground and excited state properties of systems containing heavy atoms have shown that accurate prediction of transition energies and related properties requires the incorporation of both relativistic and higher order correlation and relaxation effects as these effects are strongly inter- wined. The relativistic and dynamical electron correlation effects can be incor- porated in many-electron systems through a variety of many-body methods like configuration interaction (CI), coupled cluster method (CCM) etc. which are very powerful and effective tool for high precision description of electron correlation in many-electron systems. In this thesis, we investigate the relativistic and correlation effects in heavy atomic and molecular systems using these two highly correlated many-body methods. It is well recognized that, heavy polar diatomic molecules such as BaF, YbF, TlF, PbO, etc. are the leading experimental candidates for the search of violation of Parity (P ) and Time-reversal (T ) symmetry. The experimental detection of such P,T-odd effects in atoms and molecules has important consequences for the theory of fundamental interactions or for physics beyond the standard model (SM). For instance, a series of experiments on TlF have already been reported which provide the tightest limit available on the tensor coupling constant C , proton electric dipole moment (EDM) dp , etc. Experiments on YbF and BaF molecules are also of fundamental significance to the study of symmetry violation in nature, as these experiments have the potential to detect effects due to the electron EDMde. It is therefore imperative that high precession calculations are necessary to interpret these ongoing (and perhaps forthcoming) experimental outcome. For example, the knowledge of the effective electric field E(characterized by Wd) at the unpaired electron is required to link the experimentally determined P,T-odd frequency shift with the electron EDM de. We begin with a brief review of P,T-odd effects in heavy atoms and polar diatomics and the possible mechanisms which can give rise to such effects, in particular, the one arises due to the intrinsic electron EDM de. The P,T-odd interaction constant Wd is computed for the ground (2∑ ) state of YbF and BaF molecules using all-electron DF orbitals at the restricted active space (RAS) CI level. The RASCI space used for both systems in this calculation is sufficiently large to incorporate important core-core, core-valence, and valence-valence electron correlation effects. In addition to Wd, we also report the dipole moment (µe ) for these systems to assess the reliability of the method. The basis set dependency of Wd is also analyzed. The single reference coupled cluster (SRCC) method, developed by the cluster expansion of a single determinant reference function, is one of the most sophisticated method for treating dynamical correlation effects in a size-extensive manner. The non-uniqueness of the exponential nature of the wave operator diversifies the methods in multi-reference context. The multi-reference coupled cluster (MRCC) strategies fall within two broad classes: (a) State-Universal (SU), a Hilbert-space approach and (b) Valence-Universal (VU), a Fock-space approach. In this thesis, we shall be mainly concerned with the VU-MRCC which unlike SU-MRCC uses a single wave operator that not only correlates the reference functions, but also all the lower valence (or the so called subdued) sectors, obtained by deleting the occupancies systematically. The linear response theory (LRT) or equation of motion (EOM) method is another possible alternative which is nowadays extensively used to compute the atomic and molecular properties. Although, the CCLRT or EOM-CC method is not fully extensive in nature, this method has some distinct advantages over the traditional VU-MRCC theory. Further, for one-valence problem like ionization processes, the CCLRT/EOM-CC is formally equivalent to VU-MRCC, and hence, size-extensive. In this thesis, the core-extensive CCLRT and core-valence extensive (all electron) VU-MRCC methods are applied to compute the ground and excited state properties of various atomic and molecular systems (HCl, CuH, Ag, Sr, Yb and Hg) using nonrelativistic and relativistic (for heavy atoms) spinors. The similarities and differences in the structure of these two formalisms are also addressed. We also investigate the ground and excited state properties of HCN which is a system of astrophysical importance. This system has raised interest among the astrophysicists due to its detection in the atmosphere of Titan and Carbon stars. HCN has also been identified via radio-techniques in both comets and interstellar atmosphere. In the ash-photolysis of oxazole, iso-oxazole, and thiozole a transient band system was observed in the region 2500-3050 Å. This band system was attributed to a meta-stable form of HCN, i.e, either HNC or triplet HCN. We carry out detailed theoretical investigations using CCLRT and complete active space self-consistent field (CASSCF) method to characterize this unidentified band and other experimentally observed transitions.

No description available.

Many-body perturbation theory and coupled-cluster theory, combined with carefully constructed basis sets, can be used to accurately compute the properties of small molecules. We applied a series of methods and basis sets aimed at reaching the ab initio limit to determine the barrier to planarity for ethylene cation. For potential energy surfaces corresponding to bond dissociation, a single Slater determinant is no longer an appropriate reference, and the single-reference hierarchy breaks down. We computed full configuration interaction benchmark data for calibrating new and existing quantum chemical methods for the accurate description of potential energy surfaces. We used the data to calibrate single-reference configuration interaction, perturbation theory, and coupled-cluster theory and multi-reference configuration interaction and perturbation theory, using various types of molecular orbitals, for breaking single and multiple bonds on ground-state and excited-state surfaces. We developed a determinant-based method which generalizes the formulation of many-body wave functions and energy expectation values. We used the method to calibrate single-reference and multi-reference configuration interaction and coupled-cluster theories, using different types of molecular orbitals, for the symmetric dissociation of water. We extended the determinant-based method to work with general configuration lists, enabling us to study, for the first time, arbitrarily truncated coupled-cluster wave functions. We used this new capability to study the importance of configurations in configuration interaction and coupled-cluster wave functions at different regions of a potential energy surface.

The work presented in this thesis is dedicated to developing inexpensive quantum-chemical models that are able to produce smooth and physically correct potential energy curves for the dissociation of single covalent bonds. It is well known that the energies produced by many ab initio theories scaling as the fifth order with the system size (for instance, second-order Moller-Plesset (MP2) and Epstein-Nesbet perturbation theories) diverge at large interatomic separations. We show that the divergent behavior of such perturbation schemes is due to a small number of terms in the energy expressions. Then, we demonstrate that the self-consistent replacement of these terms by their analogs from the coupled cluster theory (such as CCSD) allows one to redress the erroneous behavior of the perturbation theories without the damage to the overall scaling. We also investigate the accuracy of these hybrid perturbation theory-coupled cluster theories near equilibrium geometry. Judging from the computed spectroscopic constants and shapes of the potential energy curves, one such model, denoted MP2-CCSD(II) in this work, performs consistently better than the MP2 theory at essentially the same computational cost.

Reactions of singlet (1S and 1D) and triplet (3P) carbon atoms with water, and 1D and 3P carbon atoms with methanol were studied computationally. In the water and methanol systems, the carbon vapor containing a mixture of C(1S), C(1D), and C(3P) atoms, is predicted to react by primarily interacting with the oxygen, OH bond and CH bond of the substrate mainly with the 1D state. While C(1S) was proven to be unreactive C(3P) can hardly be supported to be reactive, and can safely be defined as unreactive. The major product, CO forms as a result of oxygen abstraction, which is observed as a fast, energetically quite favorable process. The scheme of this oxygen abstraction is promising to be applicable to substrates with the general formula R1-O-R2 i.e. water, alcohols, and ethers. OH insertion, both for water and methanol, yields trappable carbenes / the carbene being a key species on the distribution of the end products. Water matrix trapping the carbene opens the path to the formation of formaldehyde / and exhibits a prototype reaction for the formation of dialkoxymethanes. Gas phase product spectrum from the reactions are broader, due to the accessibility of the routes originating from the otherwise trapped intermediates / and the excess energy of the reactions being carried by them. In the condensed phase the very early and rapid reactions seem to have chance, the subsequent rearrangements are hard to occur. The conclusions thus far apply to the reactions in the gas phase as well as in condensed phases involving inert matrices / and the experimental isolation of the species is highly dependent on the ability of the medium to trap the intermediates via effective transfer of excess energy. Due to the large excess energies of intermediates involved, subsequent reactions are fast / of the order 1013 s-1 from kinetic rate calculations. In the absence of efficient transfer of non-fixed energies to the surrounding medium, all of the reaction paths will conclude with irreversible dissociation reactions. Plausible mechanisms for all the experimentally observed products are predicted. The results are in agreement with the available experimental data.