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The high computational scaling with the basis set size and the number of correlated electrons is a bottleneck limiting applications of coupled cluster algorithms, in particular for calculations based on two- or four-component relativistic Hamiltonians, which often employ uncontracted basis sets. This problem may be alleviated by replacing canonical Hartree–Fock virtual orbitals by natural orbitals (NOs). In this paper, we describe the implementation of a module for generating NOs for correlated wavefunctions and, in particular, second order Møller–Plesset perturbation frozen natural orbitals (MP2FNOs) as a component of our novel implementation of relativistic coupled cluster theory for massively parallel architectures [Pototschnig et al. J. Chem. Theory Comput. 17, 5509, (2021)]. Our implementation can manipulate complex or quaternion density matrices, thus allowing for the generation of both Kramers-restricted and Kramers-unrestricted MP2FNOs. Furthermore, NOs are re-expressed in the parent atomic orbital (AO) basis, allowing for generating coupled cluster singles and doubles NOs in the AO basis for further analysis. By investigating the truncation errors of MP2FNOs for both the correlation energy and molecular properties—electric field gradients at the nuclei, electric dipole and quadrupole moments for hydrogen halides HX (X = F–Ts), and parity-violating energy differences for H2Z2 (Z = O–Se)—we find MP2FNOs accelerate the convergence of the correlation energy in a roughly uniform manner across the Periodic Table. It is possible to obtain reliable estimates for both energies and the molecular properties considered with virtual molecular orbital spaces truncated to about half the size of the full spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The superposition of atomic potentials (SAP) approach has recently been shown to be a simple and efficient way to initialize electronic structure calculations [S. Lehtola, J. Chem. Theory Comput. 15, 1593–1604 (2019)]. Here, we study the differences between effective potentials from fully numerical density functional and optimized effective potential calculations for fixed configurations. We find that the differences are small, overall, and choose exchange-only potentials at the local density approximation level of theory computed on top of Hartree–Fock densities as a good compromise. The differences between potentials arising from different atomic configurations are also found to be small at this level of theory. Furthermore, we discuss the efficient Gaussian-basis implementation of SAP via error function fits to fully numerical atomic radial potentials. The guess obtained from the fitted potentials can be easily implemented in any Gaussian-basis quantum chemistry code in terms of two-electron integrals. Fits covering the whole periodic table from H to Og are reported for non-relativistic as well as fully relativistic four-component calculations that have been carried out with fully numerical approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a new method of calculating electronically excited states that combines a density functional theory based ground state calculation with a linear response treatment that employs approximations used in the time-dependent density functional based tight binding (TD-DFTB) approach. The new method termed time-dependent density functional theory TD-DFT+TB does not rely on the DFTB parametrization and is therefore applicable to systems involving all combinations of elements. We show that the new method yields UV/Vis absorption spectra that are in excellent agreement with computationally much more expensive TD-DFT calculations. Errors in vertical excitation energies are reduced by a factor of two compared to TD-DFTB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]