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While the many-body expansion (MBE) and counterpoise treatments are commonly used to mitigate the high scaling of accurate ab initio methods, researchers may need to piece together tools and scripts if their primary chosen software does not support targeted features. To further modular software in quantum chemistry, the arbitrary-order, multiple-model-chemistry, counterpoise-enabled MBE implementation from Psi4 has been extracted into an independent, lightweight, and open-source Python module, QCManyBody, with new schema underpinning, application programming interface, and software integrations. The package caters to direct users by facilitating single-point and geometry optimization MBE calculations backed by popular quantum chemistry codes through the QCEngine runner and by defining a schema for requesting and reporting many-body computations. It also serves developers and integrators by providing minimal, composable, and extensible interfaces. The design and flexibility of QCManyBody are demonstrated via integrations with geomeTRIC, OptKing, Psi4, QCEngine, and the QCArchive project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Symmetry-adapted perturbation theory (SAPT) is an ab initio approach that directly computes noncovalent interaction energies in terms of electrostatics, exchange repulsion, induction/polarization, and London dispersion components. Due to its high computational scaling, routine applications of even the lowest order of SAPT are typically limited to a few hundred atoms. To address this limitation, we report here the addition of electrostatic embedding to the SAPT (EE-SAPT) and ISAPT (EE-ISAPT) methods. We illustrate the embedding scheme using water trimer as a prototype example. Then, we show that EE-SAPT/EE-ISAPT can be applied for efficiently and accurately computing noncovalent interactions in large systems, including solvated dimers and protein–ligand systems. In the latter application, particular care must be taken to properly handle the quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics boundary when it cuts covalent bonds. We investigate various schemes for handling charges near this boundary and demonstrate which are most effective in the context of charge-embedded SAPT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Symmetry-adapted perturbation theory (SAPT) directly computes intermolecular interaction energy in terms of electrostatics, exchange-repulsion, induction/polarization, and London dispersion components. In SAPT based on Hartree–Fock ("SAPT0") or based on density functional theory, the most time-consuming step is the computation of the dispersion terms. Previous work has explored the replacement of these expensive dispersion terms with simple damped asymptotic models. We recently examined [Schriber et al. J. Chem. Phys. 154, 234107 (2021)] the accuracy of SAPT0 when replacing its dispersion term with Grimme's popular -D3 correction, reducing the computational cost scaling from O ( N 5 ) to O ( N 3 ). That work optimized damping function parameters for SAPT0-D3/jun-cc-pVDZ using estimates of the coupled-cluster complete basis set limit [CCSD(T)/CBS] on a 8299 dimer dataset. Here, we explore the accuracy of SAPT0-D3 with additional basis sets, along with an analogous model using -D4. Damping parameters are rather insensitive to basis sets, and the resulting SAPT0-D models are more accurate on average for total interaction energies than SAPT0. Our results are surprising in several respects: (1) improvement of -D4 over -D3 is negligible for these systems, even charged systems where -D4 should, in principle, be more accurate; (2) addition of Axilrod–Teller–Muto terms for three-body dispersion does not improve error statistics for this test set; and (3) SAPT0-D is even more accurate on average for total interaction energies than the much more computationally costly density functional theory based SAPT [SAPT(DFT)] in an aug-cc-pVDZ basis. However, SAPT0 and SAPT0-D3/D4 interaction energies benefit from significant error cancellation between exchange and dispersion terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present an efficient, open-source formulation for coupled-cluster theory through perturbative triples with domain-based local pair natural orbitals [DLPNO-CCSD(T)]. Similar to the implementation of the DLPNO-CCSD(T) method found in the ORCA package, the most expensive integral generation and contraction steps associated with the CCSD(T) method are linear-scaling. In this work, we show that the t1-transformed Hamiltonian allows for a less complex algorithm when evaluating the local CCSD(T) energy without compromising efficiency or accuracy. Our algorithm yields sub-kJ mol−1 deviations for relative energies when compared with canonical CCSD(T), with typical errors being on the order of 0.1 kcal mol−1, using our TightPNO parameters. We extensively tested and optimized our algorithm and parameters for non-covalent interactions, which have been the most difficult interaction to model for orbital (PNO)-based methods historically. To highlight the capabilities of our code, we tested it on large water clusters, as well as insulin (787 atoms). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiple algorithms exist for calculating Coulomb (J) or exchange (K) contributions to Fock-like matrices, and it is beneficial to develop a framework that allows the seamless integration and combination of different J and K construction algorithms. In Psi4, we have implemented the "CompositeJK" formalism for this purpose. CompositeJK allows for the combination of any J and K construction algorithms for any quantum chemistry method formulated in terms of J-like or K-like matrices (including, but not limited to, Hartree–Fock and density functional theory) in a highly modular and intuitive fashion, which is simple to utilize for both developers and users. Using the CompositeJK framework, Psi4 was interfaced to the sn-LinK implementation in the GauXC library, adding the first instance of noncommercial graphics processing unit (GPU) support for the construction of Fock matrix elements to Psi4. On systems with hundreds of atoms, the interface to the CPU sn-LinK implementation displays a higher performance than all the alternative JK construction methods available in Psi4, with up to x2.8 speedups compared to existing Psi4JK implementations. The GPU sn-LinK implementation, harnessing the power of GPUs, improves the observed performance gains to up to x7.0. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Access to accurate force-field parameters for small molecules is crucial for computational studies of their interactions with proteins. Although a number of general force fields for small molecules exist, e.g., CGenFF, GAFF, and OPLS, they do not cover all common chemical groups and their combinations. The Force Field Toolkit (ffTK) provides a comprehensive graphical interface that streamlines the development of classical parameters for small molecules directly from quantum mechanical (QM) calculations, allowing for force-field generation for almost any chemical group and validation of the fit relative to the target data. ffTK relies on supported external software for the QM calculations, but it can generate the necessary QM input files and parse and analyze the QM output. In previous ffTK versions, support for Gaussian and ORCA QM packages was implemented. Here, we add support for Psi4, an open-source QM package free for all users, thereby broadening user access to ffTK. We also compare the parameter sets obtained with the new ffTK version using Gaussian, ORCA, and Psi4 for three molecules: pyrrolidine, n-propylammonium cation, and chlorobenzene. Despite minor differences between the resulting parameter sets for each compound, most prominently in the dihedral and improper terms, we show that conformational distributions sampled in molecular dynamics simulations using these parameter sets are quite comparable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focal-point approximation can be used to estimate a high-accuracy, slow quantum chemistry computation by combining several lower-accuracy, faster computations. We examine the performance of focal-point methods by combining second-order Møller–Plesset perturbation theory (MP2) with coupled-cluster singles, doubles, and perturbative triples [CCSD(T)] for the calculation of harmonic frequencies and that of fundamental frequencies using second-order vibrational perturbation theory (VPT2). In contrast to standard CCSD(T), the focal-point CCSD(T) method approaches the complete basis set (CBS) limit with only triple-ζ basis sets for the coupled-cluster portion of the computation. The predicted harmonic and fundamental frequencies were compared with the experimental values for a set of 20 molecules containing up to six atoms. The focal-point method combining CCSD(T)/aug-cc-pV(T + d)Z with CBS-extrapolated MP2 has mean absolute errors vs experiment of only 7.3 cm−1 for the fundamental frequencies, which are essentially the same as the mean absolute error for CCSD(T) extrapolated to the CBS limit using the aug-cc-pV(Q + d)Z and aug-cc-pV(5 + d)Z basis sets. However, for H2O, the focal-point procedure requires only 3% of the computation time as the extrapolated CCSD(T) result, and the cost savings will grow for larger molecules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dimer interaction energies have been well studied in computational chemistry, but they can offer an incomplete understanding of molecular binding depending on the system. In the current study, we present a dataset of focal-point coupled-cluster interaction and deformation energies (summing to binding energies, De) of 28 organic molecular dimers. We use these highly accurate energies to evaluate ten density functional approximations for their accuracy. The best performing method (with a double-ζ basis set), B97M-D3BJ, is then used to calculate the binding energies of 104 organic dimers, and we analyze the influence of the nature and strength of interaction on deformation energies. Deformation energies can be as large as 50% of the dimer interaction energy, especially when hydrogen bonding is present. In most cases, two or more hydrogen bonds present in a dimer correspond to an interaction energy of −10 to −25 kcal mol−1, allowing a deformation energy above 1 kcal mol−1 (and up to 9.5 kcal mol−1). A lack of hydrogen bonding usually restricts the deformation energy to below 1 kcal mol−1 due to the weaker interaction energy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The many-body expansion (MBE) is promising for the efficient, parallel computation of lattice energies in organic crystals. Very high accuracy should be achievable by employing coupled-cluster singles, doubles, and perturbative triples at the complete basis set limit [CCSD(T)/CBS] for the dimers, trimers, and potentially tetramers resulting from the MBE, but such a brute-force approach seems impractical for crystals of all but the smallest molecules. Here, we investigate hybrid or multi-level approaches that employ CCSD(T)/CBS only for the closest dimers and trimers and utilize much faster methods like Møller–Plesset perturbation theory (MP2) for more distant dimers and trimers. For trimers, MP2 is supplemented with the Axilrod–Teller–Muto (ATM) model of three-body dispersion. MP2(+ATM) is shown to be a very effective replacement for CCSD(T)/CBS for all but the closest dimers and trimers. A limited investigation of tetramers using CCSD(T)/CBS suggests that the four-body contribution is entirely negligible. The large set of CCSD(T)/CBS dimer and trimer data should be valuable in benchmarking approximate methods for molecular crystals and allows us to see that a literature estimate of the core-valence contribution of the closest dimers to the lattice energy using just MP2 was overbinding by 0.5 kJ mol−1, and an estimate of the three-body contribution from the closest trimers using the T0 approximation in local CCSD(T) was underbinding by 0.7 kJ mol−1. Our CCSD(T)/CBS best estimate of the 0 K lattice energy is −54.01 kJ mol−1, compared to an estimated experimental value of −55.3 ± 2.2 kJ mol−1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To study the contribution of three-body dispersion to crystal lattice energies, we compute the three-body contributions to the lattice energies for crystalline benzene, carbon dioxide, and triazine using various computational methods. We show that these contributions converge quickly as the intermolecular distances between the monomers grow. In particular, the smallest value among the three pairwise intermonomer closest-contact distances, Rmin, shows a strong correlation with the three-body contribution to the lattice energy, and, here, the largest of the closest-contact distances, Rmax, serves as a cutoff criterion to limit the number of trimers to be considered. We considered all trimers up to R max = 15 A ̊ . The trimers with R min < 4 A ̊ contribute 90.4%, 90.6%, and 93.9% of the total three-body contributions for crystalline benzene, carbon dioxide, and triazine, respectively, for the coupled-cluster singles, doubles, and perturbative triples [CCSD(T)] method. For trimers with R min > 4 A ̊ , the second-order Møller–Plesset perturbation theory (MP2) supplemented with the Axilrod–Teller–Muto (ATM) three-body dispersion correction reproduces the CCSD(T) values for the cumulative three-body contributions with errors of less than 0.1 kJ mol−1. Moreover, three-body contributions are converged within 0.15 kJ mol−1 by R max = 10 A ̊ . From these results, it appears that in molecular crystals where dispersion dominates the three-body contribution to the lattice energy, the trimers with R min > 4 A ̊ can be computed with the MP2+ATM method to reduce the computational cost, and those with R max > 10 A ̊ appear to be basically negligible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the many-body expansion to predict crystal lattice energies (CLEs), a pleasantly parallel process, allows for flexibility in the choice of theoretical methods. Benchmark-level two-body contributions to CLEs of 23 molecular crystals have been computed using interaction energies of dimers with minimum inter-monomer separations (i.e., closest contact distances) up to 30 Å. In a search for ways to reduce the computational expense of calculating accurate CLEs, we have computed these two-body contributions with 15 different quantum chemical levels of theory and compared these energies to those computed with coupled-cluster in the complete basis set (CBS) limit. Interaction energies of the more distant dimers are easier to compute accurately and several of the methods tested are suitable as replacements for coupled-cluster through perturbative triples for all but the closest dimers. For our dataset, sub-kJ mol−1 accuracy can be obtained when calculating two-body interaction energies of dimers with separations shorter than 4 Å with coupled-cluster with single, double, and perturbative triple excitations/CBS and dimers with separations longer than 4 Å with MP2.5/aug-cc-pVDZ, among other schemes, reducing the number of dimers to be computed with coupled-cluster by as much as 98%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Routinely assessing the stability of molecular crystals with high accuracy remains an open challenge in the computational sciences. The many-body expansion decomposes computation of the crystal lattice energy into an embarrassingly parallel collection of computations over molecular dimers, trimers, and so forth, making quantum chemistry techniques tractable for many crystals of small organic molecules. By examining the range-dependence of different types of energetic contributions to the crystal lattice energy, we can glean qualitative understanding of solid-state intermolecular interactions as well as practical, exploitable reductions in the number of computations required for accurate energies. Here, we assess the range-dependent character of two-body interactions of 24 small organic molecular crystals by using the physically interpretable components from symmetry-adapted perturbation theory (electrostatics, exchange-repulsion, induction/polarization, and London dispersion). We also examine correlations between the convergence rates of electrostatics and London dispersion terms with molecular dipole moments and polarizabilities, to provide guidance for estimating convergence rates in other molecular crystals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report the implementation of a symmetry-adapted perturbation theory algorithm based on a density functional theory [SAPT(DFT)] description of monomers. The implementation adopts a density-fitting treatment of hybrid exchange–correlation kernels to enable the description of monomers with hybrid functionals, as in the algorithm by Bukowski, Podeszwa, and Szalewicz [Chem. Phys. Lett. 414, 111 (2005)]. We have improved the algorithm by increasing numerical stability with QR factorization and optimized the computation of the exchange–correlation kernel with its 2-index density-fitted representation. The algorithm scales as O(N5) formally and is usable for systems with up to ∼3000 basis functions, as demonstrated for the C60–buckycatcher complex with the aug-cc-pVDZ basis set. The hybrid-kernel-based SAPT(DFT) algorithm is shown to be as accurate as SAPT(DFT) implementations based on local effective exact exchange potentials obtained from the local Hartree–Fock (LHF) method while avoiding the lower-scaling [O(N4)] but iterative and sometimes hard-to-converge LHF process. The hybrid-kernel algorithm outperforms Hartree–Fock-based SAPT (SAPT0) for the S66 test set, and its accuracy is comparable to the many-body perturbation theory based SAPT2+ approach, which scales as O(N7), although SAPT2+ exhibits a more narrow distribution of errors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-level quantum chemical computations have provided significant insight into the fundamental physical nature of non-covalent interactions. These studies have focused primarily on gas-phase computations of small van der Waals dimers; however, these interactions frequently take place in complex chemical environments, such as proteins, solutions, or solids. To better understand how the chemical environment affects non-covalent interactions, we have undertaken a quantum chemical study of π–π interactions in an aqueous solution, as exemplified by T-shaped benzene dimers surrounded by 28 or 50 explicit water molecules. We report interaction energies (IEs) using second-order Møller–Plesset perturbation theory, and we apply the intramolecular and functional-group partitioning extensions of symmetry-adapted perturbation theory (ISAPT and F-SAPT, respectively) to analyze how the solvent molecules tune the π–π interactions of the solute. For complexes containing neutral monomers, even 50 explicit waters (constituting a first and partial second solvation shell) change total SAPT IEs between the two solute molecules by only tenths of a kcal mol−1, while significant changes of up to 3 kcal mol−1 of the electrostatic component are seen for the cationic pyridinium–benzene dimer. This difference between charged and neutral solutes is attributed to large non-additive three-body interactions within solvated ion-containing complexes. Overall, except for charged solutes, our quantum computations indicate that nearby solvent molecules cause very little "tuning" of the direct solute–solute interactions. This indicates that differences in binding energies between the gas phase and solution phase are primarily indirect effects of the competition between solute–solute and solute–solvent interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Symmetry-adapted perturbation theory (SAPT) has become an invaluable tool for studying the fundamental nature of non-covalent interactions by directly computing the electrostatics, exchange (steric) repulsion, induction (polarization), and London dispersion contributions to the interaction energy using quantum mechanics. Further application of SAPT is primarily limited by its computational expense, where even its most affordable variant (SAPT0) scales as the fifth power of system size [ O ( N 5 ) ] due to the dispersion terms. The algorithmic scaling of SAPT0 is reduced from O ( N 5 ) → O ( N 4 ) by replacing these terms with the empirical D3 dispersion correction of Grimme and co-workers, forming a method that may be termed SAPT0-D3. Here, we optimize the damping parameters for the -D3 terms in SAPT0-D3 using a much larger training set than has previously been considered, namely, 8299 interaction energies computed at the complete-basis-set limit of coupled cluster through perturbative triples [CCSD(T)/CBS]. Perhaps surprisingly, with only three fitted parameters, SAPT0-D3 improves on the accuracy of SAPT0, reducing mean absolute errors from 0.61 to 0.49 kcal mol−1 over the full set of complexes. Additionally, SAPT0-D3 exhibits a nearly 2.5× speedup over conventional SAPT0 for systems with ∼300 atoms and is applied here to systems with up to 459 atoms. Finally, we have also implemented a functional group partitioning of the approach (F-SAPT0-D3) and applied it to determine important contacts in the binding of salbutamol to G-protein coupled β1-adrenergic receptor in both active and inactive forms. SAPT0-D3 capabilities have been added to the open-source Psi4 software. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Computation of intermolecular interactions is a challenge in drug discovery because accurate ab initio techniques are too computationally expensive to be routinely applied to drug–protein models. Classical force fields are more computationally feasible, and force fields designed to match symmetry adapted perturbation theory (SAPT) interaction energies can remain accurate in this context. Unfortunately, the application of such force fields is complicated by the laborious parameterization required for computations on new molecules. Here, we introduce the component-based machine-learned intermolecular force field (CLIFF), which combines accurate, physics-based equations for intermolecular interaction energies with machine-learning models to enable automatic parameterization. The CLIFF uses functional forms corresponding to electrostatic, exchange-repulsion, induction/polarization, and London dispersion components in SAPT. Molecule-independent parameters are fit with respect to SAPT2+(3)δMP2/aug-cc-pVTZ, and molecule-dependent atomic parameters (atomic widths, atomic multipoles, and Hirshfeld ratios) are obtained from machine learning models developed for C, N, O, H, S, F, Cl, and Br. The CLIFF achieves mean absolute errors (MAEs) no worse than 0.70 kcal mol−1 in both total and component energies across a diverse dimer test set. For the side chain–side chain interaction database derived from protein fragments, the CLIFF produces total interaction energies with an MAE of 0.27 kcal mol−1 with respect to reference data, outperforming similar and even more expensive methods. In applications to a set of model drug–protein interactions, the CLIFF is able to accurately rank-order ligand binding strengths and achieves less than 10% error with respect to SAPT reference values for most complexes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intermolecular interactions are critical to many chemical phenomena, but their accurate computation using ab initio methods is often limited by computational cost. The recent emergence of machine learning (ML) potentials may be a promising alternative. Useful ML models should not only estimate accurate interaction energies but also predict smooth and asymptotically correct potential energy surfaces. However, existing ML models are not guaranteed to obey these constraints. Indeed, systemic deficiencies are apparent in the predictions of our previous hydrogen-bond model as well as the popular ANI-1X model, which we attribute to the use of an atomic energy partition. As a solution, we propose an alternative atomic-pairwise framework specifically for intermolecular ML potentials, and we introduce AP-Net—a neural network model for interaction energies. The AP-Net model is developed using this physically motivated atomic-pairwise paradigm and also exploits the interpretability of symmetry adapted perturbation theory (SAPT). We show that in contrast to other models, AP-Net produces smooth, physically meaningful intermolecular potentials exhibiting correct asymptotic behavior. Initially trained on only a limited number of mostly hydrogen-bonded dimers, AP-Net makes accurate predictions across the chemically diverse S66x8 dataset, demonstrating significant transferability. On a test set including experimental hydrogen-bonded dimers, AP-Net predicts total interaction energies with a mean absolute error of 0.37 kcal mol−1, reducing errors by a factor of 2–5 across SAPT components from previous neural network potentials. The pairwise interaction energies of the model are physically interpretable, and an investigation of predicted electrostatic energies suggests that the model "learns" the physics of hydrogen-bonded interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focal-point approach, combining several quantum chemistry computations to estimate a more accurate computation at a lower expense, is effective and commonly used for energies. However, it has not yet been widely adopted for properties such as geometries. Here, we examine several focal-point methods combining Møller–Plesset perturbation theory (MP2 and MP2.5) with coupled-cluster theory through perturbative triples [CCSD(T)] for their effectiveness in geometry optimizations using a new driver for the Psi4 electronic structure program that efficiently automates the computation of composite-energy gradients. The test set consists of 94 closed-shell molecules containing first- and/or second-row elements. The focal-point methods utilized combinations of correlation-consistent basis sets cc-pV(X+d)Z and heavy-aug-cc-pV(X+d)Z (X = D, T, Q, 5, 6). Focal-point geometries were compared to those from conventional CCSD(T) using basis sets up to heavy-aug-cc-pV5Z and to geometries from explicitly correlated CCSD(T)-F12 using the cc-pVXZ-F12 (X = D, T) basis sets. All results were compared to reference geometries reported by Karton et al. [J. Chem. Phys. 145, 104101 (2016)] at the CCSD(T)/heavy-aug-cc-pV6Z level of theory. In general, focal-point methods based on an estimate of the MP2 complete-basis-set limit, with a coupled-cluster correction evaluated in a (heavy-aug-)cc-pVXZ basis, are of superior quality to conventional CCSD(T)/(heavy-aug-)cc-pV(X+1)Z and sometimes approach the errors of CCSD(T)/(heavy-aug-)cc-pV(X+2)Z. However, the focal-point methods are much faster computationally. For the benzene molecule, the gradient of such a focal-point approach requires only 4.5% of the computation time of a conventional CCSD(T)/cc-pVTZ gradient and only 0.4% of the time of a CCSD(T)/cc-pVQZ gradient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate prediction of intermolecular interaction energies is a fundamental challenge in electronic structure theory due to their subtle character and small magnitudes relative to total molecular energies. Symmetry adapted perturbation theory (SAPT) provides rigorous quantum mechanical means for computing such quantities directly and accurately, but for a computational cost of at least O ( N 5 ) , where N is the number of atoms. Here, we report machine learned models of SAPT components with a computational cost that scales asymptotically linearly, O (N). We use modified multi-target Behler–Parrinello neural networks and specialized intermolecular symmetry functions to address the idiosyncrasies of the intermolecular problem, achieving 1.2 kcal mol−1 mean absolute errors on a test set of hydrogen bound complexes including structural data extracted from the Cambridge Structural Database and Protein Data Bank, spanning an interaction energy range of 20 kcal mol−1. Additionally, we recover accurate predictions of the physically meaningful SAPT component energies, of which dispersion and induction/polarization were the easiest to predict and electrostatics and exchange–repulsion are the most difficult. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents techniques for Fock matrix construction that are designed for high performance on shared and distributed memory parallel computers when using Gaussian basis sets. Four main techniques are considered. (1) To calculate electron repulsion integrals, we demonstrate batching together the calculation of multiple shell quartets of the same angular momentum class so that the calculation of large sets of primitive integrals can be efficiently vectorized. (2) For multithreaded summation of entries into the Fock matrix, we investigate using a combination of atomic operations and thread-local copies of the Fock matrix. (3) For distributed memory parallel computers, we present a globally accessible matrix class for accessing distributed Fock and density matrices. The new matrix class introduces a batched mode for remote memory access that can reduce the synchronization cost. (4) For density fitting, we exploit both symmetry (of the Coulomb and exchange matrices) and sparsity (of 3-index tensors) and give a performance comparison of density fitting and the conventional direct calculation approach. The techniques are implemented in an open-source software library called GTFock. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present an algorithm to compute the lattice energies of molecular crystals based on the many-body cluster expansion. The required computations on dimers, trimers, etc., within the crystal are independent of each other, leading to a naturally parallel approach. The algorithm exploits the long-range three-dimensional periodic order of crystals to automatically detect and avoid redundant or unnecessary computations. For this purpose, Coulomb-matrix descriptors from machine learning applications are found to be efficient in determining whether two N-mers are identical. The algorithm is implemented as an open-source Python program, CrystaLattE, that uses some of the features of the Quantum Chemistry Common Driver and Databases library. CrystaLattE is initially interfaced with the quantum chemistry package Psi4. With CrystaLattE, we have applied the fast, dispersion-corrected Hartree–Fock method HF-3c to the lattice energy of crystalline benzene. Including all 73 symmetry-unique dimers and 7130 symmetry-unique trimers that can be formed from molecules within a 15 Å cutoff from a central reference monomer, HF-3c plus an Axilrod-Teller-Muto estimate of three-body dispersion exhibits an error of only −1.0 kJ mol−1 vs the estimated 0 K experimental lattice energy of −55.3 ± 2.2 kJ mol−1. The convergence of the HF-3c two- and three-body contributions to the lattice energy as a function of intermonomer distance is examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate potential energy models are necessary for reliable atomistic simulations of chemical phenomena. In the realm of biomolecular modeling, large systems like proteins comprise very many noncovalent interactions (NCIs) that can contribute to the protein's stability and structure. This work presents two high-quality chemical databases of common fragment interactions in biomolecular systems as extracted from high-resolution Protein DataBank crystal structures: 3380 sidechain-sidechain interactions and 100 backbone-backbone interactions that inaugurate the BioFragment Database (BFDb). Absolute interaction energies are generated with a computationally tractable explicitly correlated coupled cluster with perturbative triples [CCSD(T)-F12] "silver standard" (0.05 kcal/mol average error) for NCI that demands only a fraction of the cost of the conventional "gold standard," CCSD(T) at the complete basis set limit. By sampling extensively from biological environments, BFDb spans the natural diversity of protein NCI motifs and orientations. In addition to supplying a thorough assessment for lower scaling force-field (2), semi-empirical (3), density functional (244), and wavefunction (45) methods (comprising >1M interaction energies), BFDb provides interactive tools for running and manipulating the resulting large datasets and offers a valuable resource for potential energy model development and validation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An efficient implementation of analytic gradients for the coupled-cluster singles and doubles with perturbative triples [CCSD(T)] method with the density-fitting (DF) approximation, denoted as DFCCSD(T), is reported. For the molecules considered, the DF approach substantially accelerates conventional CCSD(T) analytic gradients due to the reduced input/output time and the acceleration of the so-called "gradient terms": formation of particle density matrices (PDMs), computation of the generalized Fock-matrix (GFM), solution of the Z-vector equation, formation of the effective PDMs and GFM, back-transformation of the PDMs and GFM, from the molecular orbital to the atomic orbital (AO) basis, and computation of gradients in the AO basis. For the largest member of the molecular test set considered (C6H14), the computational times for analytic gradients (with the correlation-consistent polarized valence triple-ζ basis set in serial) are 106.2 [CCSD(T)] and 49.8 [DF-CCSD(T)] h, a speedup of more than 2-fold. In the evaluation of gradient terms, the DF approach completely avoids the use of four-index two-electron integrals. Similar to our previous studies on DF-second-order Møller-Plesset perturbation theory and DF-CCSD gradients, our formalism employs 2- and 3-index two-particle density matrices (TPDMs) instead of 4-index TPDMs. Errors introduced by the DF approximation are negligible for equilibrium geometries and harmonic vibrational frequencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Symmetry-Adapted Perturbation Theory (SAPT) is one of the most popular approaches to energy component analysis of non-covalent interactions between closed-shell systems, yielding both accurate interaction energies and meaningful interaction energy components. In recent years, the full open-shell equations for SAPT up to second-order in the intermolecular interaction and zeroth-order in the intramolecular correlation (SAPT0) were published [P. S. Zuchowski et al., J. Chem. Phys. 129, 084101 (2008); M. Hapka et al., ibid. 137, 164104 (2012)]. Here, we utilize density-fitted electron repulsion integrals to produce an efficient computational implementation. This approach is used to examine the effect of ionization on π-π interactions. For the benzene dimer radical cation, comparison against reference values indicates a good performance for open-shell SAPT0, except in cases with substantial charge transfer. For π stacking between hydrogen-bonded pairs of nucleobases, dispersion interactions still dominate binding, in spite of the creation of a positive charge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An efficient implementation is presented for analytic gradients of the coupled-cluster singles and doubles (CCSD) method with the density-fitting approximation, denoted DF-CCSD. Frozen core terms are also included. When applied to a set of alkanes, the DF-CCSD analytic gradients are significantly accelerated compared to conventional CCSD for larger molecules. The efficiency of our DF-CCSD algorithm arises from the acceleration of several different terms, which are designated as the "gradient terms": computation of particle density matrices (PDMs), generalized Fock-matrix (GFM), solution of the Z-vector equation, formation of the relaxed PDMs and GFM, back-transformation of PDMs and GFM to the atomic orbital (AO) basis, and evaluation of gradients in the AO basis. For the largest member of the alkane set (C10H22), the computational times for the gradient terms (with the cc-pVTZ basis set) are 2582.6 (CCSD) and 310.7 (DF-CCSD) min, respectively, a speed up of more than 8-folds. For gradient related terms, the DF approach avoids the usage of four-index electron repulsion integrals. Based on our previous study [U. Bozkaya, J. Chem. Phys. 141, 124108 (2014)], our formalism completely avoids construction or storage of the 4-index two-particle density matrix (TPDM), using instead 2- and 3-index TPDMs. The DF approach introduces negligible errors for equilibrium bond lengths and harmonic vibrational frequencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We develop a simple methodology for the computation of symmetry-adapted perturbation theory (SAPT) interaction energy contributions for intramolecular noncovalent interactions. In this approach, the local occupied orbitals of the total Hartree-Fock (HF) wavefunction are used to partition the fully interacting system into three chemically identifiable units: the noncovalent fragments A and B and a covalent linker C. Once these units are identified, the noninteracting HF wavefunctions of the fragments A and B are separately optimized while embedded in the HF wavefunction of C, providing the dressed zeroth order wavefunctions for A and B in the presence of C. Standard two-body SAPT (particularly SAPT0) is then applied between the relaxed wavefunctions for A and B. This intramolecular SAPT procedure is found to be remarkably straightforward and efficient, as evidenced by example applications ranging from diols to hexaphenyl-ethane derivatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A systematic examination of noncovalent interactions as modeled by wavefunction theory is presented in comparison to gold-standard quality benchmarks available for 345 interaction energies of 49 bimolecular complexes. Quantum chemical techniques examined include spin-component-scaling (SCS) variations on second-order perturbation theory (MP2) [SCS, SCS(N), SCS(MI)] and coupled cluster singles and doubles (CCSD) [SCS, SCS(MI)]; also, method combinations designed to improve dispersion contacts [DW-MP2, MP2C, MP2.5, DW-CCSD(T)-F12]; where available, explicitly correlated (F12) counterparts are also considered. Dunning basis sets augmented by diffuse functions are employed for all accessible Z-levels; truncations of the diffuse space are also considered. After examination of both accuracy and performance for 394 model chemistries, SCS(MI)-MP2/cc-pVQZ can be recommended for general use, having good accuracy at low cost and no ill-effects such as imbalance between hydrogen-bonding and dispersion-dominated systems or non-parallelity across dissociation curves. Moreover, when benchmarking accuracy is desirable but gold-standard computations are unaffordable, this work recommends silver-standard [DW-CCSD(T**)-F12/aug-cc-pVDZ] and bronze-standard [MP2C-F12/aug-cc-pVDZ] model chemistries, which support accuracies of 0.05 and 0.16 kcal/mol and efficiencies of 97.3 and 5.5 h for adenine · thymine, respectively. Choice comparisons of wavefunction results with the best symmetry-adapted perturbation theory [T. M. Parker, L. A. Burns, R. M. Parrish, A. G. Ryno, and C. D. Sherrill, J. Chem. Phys. 140, 094106 (2014)] and density functional theory [L. A. Burns, Á. Vázquez-Mayagoitia, B. G. Sumpter, and C. D. Sherrill, J. Chem. Phys. 134, 084107 (2011)] methods previously studied for these databases are provided for readers' guidance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Orbital-optimized MP2.5 [or simply "optimized MP2.5," OMP2.5, for short] and its analytic energy gradients are presented. The cost of the presented method is as much as that of coupled-cluster singles and doubles (CCSD) [O(N6) scaling] for energy computations. However, for analytic gradient computations the OMP2.5 method is only half as expensive as CCSD because there is no need to solve λ2-amplitude equations for OMP2.5. The performance of the OMP2.5 method is compared with that of the standard second-order Møller-Plesset perturbation theory (MP2), MP2.5, CCSD, and coupled-cluster singles and doubles with perturbative triples (CCSD(T)) methods for equilibrium geometries, hydrogen transfer reactions between radicals, and noncovalent interactions. For bond lengths of both closed and open-shell molecules, the OMP2.5 method improves upon MP2.5 and CCSD by 38%-43% and 31%-28%, respectively, with Dunning's cc-pCVQZ basis set. For complete basis set (CBS) predictions of hydrogen transfer reaction energies, the OMP2.5 method exhibits a substantially better performance than MP2.5, providing a mean absolute error of 1.1 kcal mol-1, which is more than 10 times lower than that of MP2.5 (11.8 kcal mol-1), and comparing to MP2 (14.6 kcal mol-1) there is a more than 12-fold reduction in errors. For noncovalent interaction energies (at CBS limits), the OMP2.5 method maintains the very good performance of MP2.5 for closed-shell systems, and for open-shell systems it significantly outperforms MP2.5 and CCSD, and approaches CCSD(T) quality. The MP2.5 errors decrease by a factor of 5 when the optimized orbitals are used for open-shell noncovalent interactions, and comparing to CCSD there is a more than 3-fold reduction in errors. Overall, the present application results indicate that the OMP2.5 method is very promising for open-shell noncovalent interactions and other chemical systems with difficult electronic structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We develop a physically-motivated assignment of symmetry adapted perturbation theory for intermolecular interactions (SAPT) into atom-pairwise contributions (the A-SAPT partition). The basic precept of A-SAPT is that the many-body interaction energy components are computed normally under the formalism of SAPT, following which a spatially-localized two-body quasiparticle interaction is extracted from the many-body interaction terms. For electrostatics and induction source terms, the relevant quasiparticles are atoms, which are obtained in this work through the iterative stockholder analysis (ISA) procedure. For the exchange, induction response, and dispersion terms, the relevant quasiparticles are local occupied orbitals, which are obtained in this work through the Pipek-Mezey procedure. The local orbital atomic charges obtained from ISA additionally allow the terms involving local orbitals to be assigned in an atom-pairwise manner. Further summation over the atoms of one or the other monomer allows for a chemically intuitive visualization of the contribution of each atom and interaction component to the overall noncovalent interaction strength. Herein, we present the intuitive development and mathematical form for A-SAPT applied in the SAPT0 approximation (the A-SAPT0 partition). We also provide an efficient series of algorithms for the computation of the A-SAPT0 partition with essentially the same computational cost as the corresponding SAPT0 decomposition. We probe the sensitivity of the A-SAPT0 partition to the ISA grid and convergence parameter, orbital localization metric, and induction coupling treatment, and recommend a set of practical choices which closes the definition of the A-SAPT0 partition. We demonstrate the utility and computational tractability of the A-SAPT0 partition in the context of side-on cation-p interactions and the intercalation of DNA by proflavine. A-SAPT0 clearly shows the key processes in these complicated noncovalent interactions, in systems with up to 220 atoms and 2845 basis functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coupled-cluster theory including single, double, and perturbative triple excitations [CCSD(T)] has been applied to trimers that appear in crystalline benzene in order to resolve discrepancies in the literature about the magnitude of non-additive three-body contributions to the lattice energy. The present results indicate a non-additive three-body contribution of 0.89 kcal mol-1, or 7.2% of the revised lattice energy of -12.3 kcal mol-1. For the trimers for which we were able to compute CCSD(T) energies, we obtain a sizeable difference of 0.63 kcal mol-1 between the CCSD(T) and MP2 three-body contributions to the lattice energy, confirming that three-body dispersion dominates over three-body induction. Taking this difference as an estimate of three-body dispersion for the closer trimers, and adding an Axilrod-Teller-Muto estimate of 0.13 kcal mol-1 for long-range contributions yields an overall value of 0.76 kcal mol-1 for three-body dispersion, a significantly smaller value than in several recent studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A systematic examination of the computational expense and accuracy of Symmetry-Adapted Perturbation Theory (SAPT) for the prediction of non-covalent interaction energies is provided with respect to both method [SAPT0, DFT-SAPT, SAPT2, SAPT2+, SAPT2+(3), and SAPT2+3; with and without CCD dispersion for the last three] and basis set [Dunning cc-pVDZ through aug-cc-pV5Z wherever computationally tractable, including truncations of diffuse basis functions]. To improve accuracy for hydrogen-bonded systems, we also include two corrections based on exchange-scaling (sSAPT0) and the supermolecular MP2 interaction energy (δMP2). When considering the best error performance relative to computational effort, we recommend as the gold, silver, and bronze standard of SAPT: SAPT2+(3)δMP2/aug-cc-pVTZ, SAPT2+/aug-cc-pVDZ, and sSAPT0/jun-ccpVDZ. Their respective mean absolute errors in interaction energy across the S22, HBC6, NBC10, and HSG databases are 0.15 (62.9), 0.30 (4.4), and 0.49 kcal mol-1 (0.03 h for adenine · thymine complex). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the torsion potentials in two prototypical π-conjugated polymers, polyacetylene and polydiacetylene, as a function of chain length using different flavors of density functional theory. Our study provides a quantitative analysis of the delocalization error in standard semilocal and hybrid density functionals and demonstrates how it can influence structural and thermodynamic properties. The delocalization error is quantified by evaluating the many-electron self-interaction error (MESIE) for fractional electron numbers, which allows us to establish a direct connection between the MESIE and the error in the torsion barriers. The use of non-empirically tuned long-range corrected hybrid functionals results in a very significant reduction of the MESIE and leads to an improved description of torsion barrier heights. In addition, we demonstrate how our analysis allows the determination of the effective conjugation length in polyacetylene and polydiacetylene chains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Orbital-optimized coupled-electron pair theory [or simply 'optimized CEPA(0),' OCEPA(0), for short] and its analytic energy gradients are presented. For variational optimization of the molecular orbitals for the OCEPA(0) method, a Lagrangian-based approach is used along with an orbital direct inversion of the iterative subspace algorithm. The cost of the method is comparable to that of CCSD [O(N6) scaling] for energy computations. However, for analytic gradient computations the OCEPA(0) method is only half as expensive as CCSD since there is no need to solve the λ2-amplitude equation for OCEPA(0). The performance of the OCEPA(0) method is compared with that of the canonical MP2, CEPA(0), CCSD, and CCSD(T) methods, for equilibrium geometries, harmonic vibrational frequencies, and hydrogen transfer reactions between radicals. For bond lengths of both closed and open-shell molecules, the OCEPA(0) method improves upon CEPA(0) and CCSD by 25%-43% and 38%-53%, respectively, with Dunning's cc-pCVQZ basis set. Especially for the open-shell test set, the performance of OCEPA(0) is comparable with that of CCSD(T) (ΔR is 0.0003 Å on average). For harmonic vibrational frequencies of closed-shell molecules, the OCEPA(0) method again outperforms CEPA(0) and CCSD by 33%-79% and 53%-79%, respectively. For harmonic vibrational frequencies of open-shell molecules, the mean absolute error (MAE) of the OCEPA(0) method (39 cm-1) is fortuitously even better than that of CCSD(T) (50 cm-1), while the MAEs of CEPA(0) (184 cm-1) and CCSD (84 cm-1) are considerably higher. For complete basis set estimates of hydrogen transfer reaction energies, the OCEPA(0) method again exhibits a substantially better performance than CEPA(0), providing a mean absolute error of 0.7 kcal mol-1, which is more than 6 times lower than that of CEPA(0) (4.6 kcal mol-1), and comparing to MP2 (7.7 kcal mol-1) there is a more than 10-fold reduction in errors. Whereas the MAE for the CCSD method is only 0.1 kcal mol-1 lower than that of OCEPA(0). Overall, the present application results indicate that the OCEPA(0) method is very promising not only for challenging open-shell systems but also for closed-shell molecules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the application of molecular quadratures obtained from either standard Becke-type grids or discrete variable representation (DVR) techniques to the recently developed least-squares tensor hypercontraction (LS-THC) representation of the electron repulsion integral (ERI) tensor. LS-THC uses least-squares fitting to renormalize a two-sided pseudospectral decomposition of the ERI, over a physical-space quadrature grid. While this procedure is technically applicable with any choice of grid, the best efficiency is obtained when the quadrature is tuned to accurately reproduce the overlap metric for quadratic products of the primary orbital basis. Properly selected Becke DFT grids can roughly attain this property. Additionally, we provide algorithms for adopting the DVR techniques of the dynamics community to produce two different classes of grids which approximately attain this property. The simplest algorithm is radial discrete variable representation (R-DVR), which diagonalizes the finite auxiliary-basis representation of the radial coordinate for each atom, and then combines Lebedev-Laikov spherical quadratures and Becke atomic partitioning to produce the full molecular quadrature grid. The other algorithm is full discrete variable representation (F-DVR), which uses approximate simultaneous diagonalization of the finite auxiliary-basis representation of the full position operator to produce non-direct-product quadrature grids. The qualitative features of all three grid classes are discussed, and then the relative efficiencies of these grids are compared in the context of LS-THC-DF-MP2. Coarse Becke grids are found to give essentially the same accuracy and efficiency as R-DVR grids; however, the latter are built from explicit knowledge of the basis set and may guide future development of atom-centered grids. F-DVR is found to provide reasonable accuracy with markedly fewer points than either Becke or R-DVR schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analytic energy gradients for the orbital-optimized second-order Mo\ller-Plesset perturbation theory (OMP2) are presented. The OMP2 method is applied to difficult chemical systems, including those where spatial or spin symmetry-breaking instabilities are observed. The performance of the OMP2 method is compared with that of second-order Mo\ller-Plesset perturbation theory (MP2) for investigating geometries and vibrational frequencies of the cis-HOOH+, trans-HOOH+, LiO2, C3+, and NO2 molecules. For harmonic vibrational frequencies, the OMP2 method eliminates the singularities arising from the abnormal response contributions observed for MP2 in case of symmetry-breaking problems, and provides significantly improved vibrational frequencies for the above molecules. We also consider the hydrogen transfer reactions between several free radicals, for which MP2 provides poor reaction energies. The OMP2 method again exhibits a considerably better performance than MP2, providing a mean absolute error of 2.3 kcal mol-1, which is more than 5 times lower than that of MP2 (13.2 kcal mol-1). Overall, the OMP2 method seems quite helpful for electronically challenging chemical systems such as symmetry-breaking molecules, hydrogen transfer reactions, or other cases where standard MP2 proves unreliable. For such systems, we recommend using OMP2 instead of MP2 as a more robust method with the same computational scaling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The least-squares tensor hypercontraction (LS-THC) representation for the electron repulsion integral (ERI) tensor is presented. Recently, we developed the generic tensor hypercontraction (THC) ansatz, which represents the fourth-order ERI tensor as a product of five second-order tensors [E. G. Hohenstein, R. M. Parrish, and T. J. Martínez, J. Chem. Phys. 137, 044103 (2012)]. Our initial algorithm for the generation of the THC factors involved a two-sided invocation of overlap-metric density fitting, followed by a PARAFAC decomposition, and is denoted PARAFAC tensor hypercontraction (PF-THC). LS-THC supersedes PF-THC by producing the THC factors through a least-squares renormalization of a spatial quadrature over the otherwise singular 1/r12 operator. Remarkably, an analytical and simple formula for the LS-THC factors exists. Using this formula, the factors may be generated with O(N5) effort if exact integrals are decomposed, or O(N4) effort if the decomposition is applied to density-fitted integrals, using any choice of density fitting metric. The accuracy of LS-THC is explored for a range of systems using both conventional and density-fitted integrals in the context of MP2. The grid fitting error is found to be negligible even for extremely sparse spatial quadrature grids. For the case of density-fitted integrals, the additional error incurred by the grid fitting step is generally markedly smaller than the underlying Coulomb-metric density fitting error. The present results, coupled with our previously published factorizations of MP2 and MP3, provide an efficient, robust O(N4) approach to both methods. Moreover, LS-THC is generally applicable to many other methods in quantum chemistry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Predicting accurate bond-length alternations (BLAs) in long conjugated molecular chains has been a major challenge for electronic-structure theory for many decades. While Hartree-Fock (HF) overestimates BLA significantly, second-order perturbation theory and commonly used density functional theory (DFT) approaches typically underestimate it. Here, we discuss how this failure is related to the many-electron self-interaction error (MSIE), which is inherent to both HF and DFT approaches. We use tuned long-range corrected hybrids to minimize the MSIE for a series of polyenes. The key result is that the minimization of the MSIE alone does not yield accurate BLAs. On the other hand, if the range-separation parameter is tuned to yield accurate BLAs, we obtain a significant MSIE that grows with chain length. Our findings demonstrate that reducing the MSIE is one but not the only important aspect necessary to obtain accurate BLAs from density functional theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In benchmark-quality studies of non-covalent interactions, it is common to estimate interaction energies at the complete basis set (CBS) coupled-cluster through perturbative triples [CCSD(T)] level of theory by adding to CBS second-order perturbation theory (MP2) a 'coupled-cluster correction,' δMP2CCSD(T), evaluated in a modest basis set. This work illustrates that commonly used basis sets such as 6-31G*(0.25) can yield large, even wrongly signed, errors for δMP2CCSD(T) that vary significantly by binding motif. Double-ζ basis sets show more reliable results when used with explicitly correlated methods to form a δMP2-F12CCSD(T*)-F12 correction, yielding a mean absolute deviation of 0.11 kcal mol-1 for the S22 test set. Examining the coupled-cluster correction for basis sets up to sextuple-ζ in quality reveals that δMP2CCSD(T) converges monotonically only beyond a turning point at triple-ζ or quadruple-ζ quality. In consequence, CBS extrapolation of δMP2CCSD(T) corrections before the turning point, generally CBS (aug-cc-pVDZ,aug-cc-pVTZ), are found to be unreliable and often inferior to aug-cc-pVTZ alone, especially for hydrogen-bonding systems. Using the findings of this paper, we revise some recent benchmarks for non-covalent interactions, namely the S22, NBC10, HBC6, and HSG test sets. The maximum differences in the revised benchmarks are 0.080, 0.060, 0.257, and 0.102 kcal mol-1, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Symmetry-adapted perturbation theory (SAPT) provides a means of probing the fundamental nature of intermolecular interactions. Low-orders of SAPT (here, SAPT0) are especially attractive since they provide qualitative (sometimes quantitative) results while remaining tractable for large systems. The application of density fitting and Laplace transformation techniques to SAPT0 can significantly reduce the expense associated with these computations and make even larger systems accessible. We present new factorizations of the SAPT0 equations with density-fitted two-electron integrals and the first application of Laplace transformations of energy denominators to SAPT. The improved scalability of the DF-SAPT0 implementation allows it to be applied to systems with more than 200 atoms and 2800 basis functions. The Laplace-transformed energy denominators are compared to analogous partial Cholesky decompositions of the energy denominator tensor. Application of our new DF-SAPT0 program to the intercalation of DNA by proflavine has allowed us to determine the nature of the proflavine-DNA interaction. Overall, the proflavine-DNA interaction contains important contributions from both electrostatics and dispersion. The energetics of the intercalator interaction are are dominated by the stacking interactions (two-thirds of the total), but contain important contributions from the intercalator-backbone interactions. It is hypothesized that the geometry of the complex will be determined by the interactions of the intercalator with the backbone, because by shifting toward one side of the backbone, the intercalator can form two long hydrogen-bonding type interactions. The long-range interactions between the intercalator and the next-nearest base pairs appear to be negligible, justifying the use of truncated DNA models in computational studies of intercalation interaction energies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a Lagrangian-based approach, we present a more elegant derivation of the equations necessary for the variational optimization of the molecular orbitals (MOs) for the coupled-cluster doubles (CCD) method and second-order Mo\ller-Plesset perturbation theory (MP2). These orbital-optimized theories are referred to as OO-CCD and OO-MP2 (or simply 'OD' and 'OMP2' for short), respectively. We also present an improved algorithm for orbital optimization in these methods. Explicit equations for response density matrices, the MO gradient, and the MO Hessian are reported both in spin-orbital and closed-shell spin-adapted forms. The Newton-Raphson algorithm is used for the optimization procedure using the MO gradient and Hessian. Further, orbital stability analyses are also carried out at correlated levels. The OD and OMP2 approaches are compared with the standard MP2, CCD, CCSD, and CCSD(T) methods. All these methods are applied to H2O, three diatomics, and the O4+ molecule. Results demonstrate that the CCSD and OD methods give nearly identical results for H2O and diatomics; however, in symmetry-breaking problems as exemplified by O4+, the OD method provides better results for vibrational frequencies. The OD method has further advantages over CCSD: its analytic gradients are easier to compute since there is no need to solve the coupled-perturbed equations for the orbital response, the computation of one-electron properties are easier because there is no response contribution to the particle density matrices, the variational optimized orbitals can be readily extended to allow inactive orbitals, it avoids spurious second-order poles in its response function, and its transition dipole moments are gauge invariant. The OMP2 has these same advantages over canonical MP2, making it promising for excited state properties via linear response theory. The quadratically convergent orbital-optimization procedure converges quickly for OMP2, and provides molecular properties that are somewhat different than those of MP2 for most of the test cases considered (although they are similar for H2O). Bond lengths are somewhat longer, and vibrational frequencies somewhat smaller, for OMP2 compared to MP2. In the difficult case of O4+, results for several vibrational frequencies are significantly improved in going from MP2 to OMP2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A systematic study of techniques for treating noncovalent interactions within the computationally efficient density functional theory (DFT) framework is presented through comparison to benchmark-quality evaluations of binding strength compiled for molecular complexes of diverse size and nature. In particular, the efficacy of functionals deliberately crafted to encompass long-range forces, a posteriori DFT+dispersion corrections (DFT-D2 and DFT-D3), and exchange-hole dipole moment (XDM) theory is assessed against a large collection (469 energy points) of reference interaction energies at the CCSD(T) level of theory extrapolated to the estimated complete basis set limit. The established S22 [revised in J. Chem. Phys. 132, 144104 (2010)] and JSCH test sets of minimum-energy structures, as well as collections of dispersion-bound (NBC10) and hydrogen-bonded (HBC6) dissociation curves and a pairwise decomposition of a protein-ligand reaction site (HSG), comprise the chemical systems for this work. From evaluations of accuracy, consistency, and efficiency for PBE-D, BP86-D, B97-D, PBE0-D, B3LYP-D, B970-D, M05-2X, M06-2X, ωB97X-D, B2PLYP-D, XYG3, and B3LYP-XDM methodologies, it is concluded that distinct, often contrasting, groups of these elicit the best performance within the accessible double-ζ or robust triple-ζ basis set regimes and among hydrogen-bonded or dispersion-dominated complexes. For overall results, M05-2X, B97-D3, and B970-D2 yield superior values in conjunction with aug-cc-pVDZ, for a mean absolute deviation of 0.41 - 0.49 kcal/mol, and B3LYP-D3, B97-D3, ωB97X-D, and B2PLYP-D3 dominate with aug-cc-pVTZ, affording, together with XYG3/6-311+G(3df,2p), a mean absolute deviation of 0.33 - 0.38 kcal/mol. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An accurate description of dispersion interactions is required for reliable theoretical studies of many noncovalent complexes. This can be obtained with the wave function-based formulation of symmetry-adapted perturbation theory (SAPT) provided that the contribution of triple excitations to dispersion is included. Unfortunately, this triples dispersion correction limits the applicability of SAPT due to its O(N7) scaling. The efficiency of the evaluation of this correction can be greatly improved by removing virtual orbitals from the computation. The error incurred from truncating the virtual space is reduced if second-order Mo\ller-Plesset perturbation theory (MP2) natural orbitals are used in place of the canonical Hartree-Fock molecular orbitals that are typically used. This approximation is further improved if the triples correction to dispersion is scaled to account for the smaller virtual space. If virtual MP2 natural orbitals are removed according to their occupation numbers, in practice, roughly half of the virtual orbitals can be removed (with the aug-cc-pVDZ basis set) with negligible errors if the remaining triples dispersion contribution is scaled. This typically leads to speedups of 15-20 times for the cases considered here. By combining the truncated virtual space with the frozen core approximation, the triples correction can be evaluated approximately 50 times faster than the canonical computation. These approximations cause less than 1% error (or at most 0.02 kcal mol-1) for the cases considered. Truncation of greater fractions of the virtual space is possible for larger basis sets (leading to speedups of over 40 times before additional speedups from the frozen core approximation). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Symmetry-adapted perturbation theory (SAPT) offers insight into the nature of intermolecular interactions. In addition, accurate energies can be obtained from the wave function-based variant of SAPT provided that intramonomer electron correlation effects are included. We apply density-fitting (DF) approximations to the intramonomer correlation corrections in SAPT. The introduction of this approximation leads to an improvement in the computational cost of SAPT by reducing the scaling of certain SAPT terms, reducing the amount of disk I/O, and avoiding the explicit computation of certain types of MO integrals. We have implemented all the intramonomer correlation corrections to SAPT through second-order under the DF approximation. Additionally, leading third-order terms are also implemented. The accuracy of this truncation of SAPT is tested against the S22 test set of Hobza and co-workers [Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 8, 1985 (2006)]. When the intramonomer corrections to dispersion are included in SAPT, a mean absolute deviation of 0.3–0.4 kcal mol-1 is observed for the S22 test set when using an aug-cc-pVDZ basis. The computations on the adenine-thymine complexes in the S22 test set with an aug-cc-pVDZ basis represent the largest SAPT computations to date that include this degree of intramonomer correlation. Computations of this size can now be performed routinely with our newly developed DF-SAPT program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Density fitting (DF) approximations have been used to increase the efficiency of several quantum mechanical methods. In this work, we apply DF and a related approach, Cholesky decomposition (CD), to wave function-based symmetry-adapted perturbation theory (SAPT). We also test the one-center approximation to the Cholesky decomposition. The DF and CD approximations lead to a dramatic improvement in the overall computational cost of SAPT, while introducing negligible errors. For typical target accuracies, the Cholesky basis needed is noticeably smaller than the DF basis (although the cost of constructing the Cholesky vectors is slightly greater than that of constructing the three-index DF integrals). The SAPT program developed in this work is applied to the interactions between acenes previously studied by Grimme [Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 47, 3430 (2008)], expanding the cases studied by adding the pentacene dimer. The SAPT decomposition of the acene interactions provides a more realistic picture of the interactions than that from the energy decomposition analysis previously reported. The data suggest that parallel-displaced and T-shaped acene dimers both feature a special stabilizing π-π interaction arising from electron correlation terms which are significantly more stabilizing than expected on the basis of pairwise -C6R-6 estimates. These terms are qualitatively the same in T-shaped as in parallel-displaced geometries, although they are roughly a factor of 2 smaller in T-shaped geometries because of the larger distances between the intermolecular pairs of electrons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The S22 test set of interaction energies for small model complexes [Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 8, 1985 (2006)] has been very valuable for benchmarking new and existing methods for noncovalent interactions. However, the basis sets utilized to compute the CCSD(T) interaction energies for some of the dimers are insufficient to obtain converged results. Here we consistently extrapolate all CCSD(T)/complete basis set (CBS) interaction energies using larger basis sets for the CCSD(T) component of the computation. The revised values, which we designate S22A, represent the most accurate results to date for this set of dimers. The new values appear to be within a few hundredths of 1 kcal mol-1 of the true CCSD(T)/CBS limit at the given geometries, but the former S22 values are off by as much as 0.6 kcal mol-1 compared to the revised values. Because some of the most promising methods for noncovalent interactions are already achieving this level of agreement (or better) compared to the S22 data, more accurate benchmark values would clearly be helpful. The MP2, SCS-MP2, SCS-CCSD, SCS(MI)-MP2, and B2PLYP-D methods have been tested against the more accurate benchmark set. The B2PLYP-D method outperforms all other methods tested here, with a mean average deviation of only 0.12 kcal mol-1. However, the consistent, slight underestimation of the interaction energies computed by the SCS-CCSD method (an overall mean absolute deviation and mean deviation of 0.24 and -0.23 kcal mol-1, respectively) suggests that the SCS-CCSD method has the potential to become even more accurate with a reoptimization of its parameters for noncovalent interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current and emerging research areas in electronic structure theory promise to greatly extend the scope and quality of quantum chemical computations. Two particularly challenging problems are the accurate description of electronic near-degeneracies (as occur in bond-breaking reactions, first-row transition elements, etc.) and the description of long-range dispersion interactions in density functional theory. Additionally, even with the emergence of reduced-scaling electronic structure methods and basis set extrapolation techniques, quantum chemical computations remain very time-consuming for large molecules or large basis sets. A variety of techniques, including density fitting and explicit correlation methods, are making rapid progress toward solving these challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]