Local Hartree-Fock orbitals using a three-level optimization strategy for the energy.

Using the three-level energy optimization procedure combined with a refined version of the least-change strategy for the orbitals--where an explicit localization is performed at the valence basis level--it is shown how to more efficiently determine a set of local Hartree-Fock orbitals. Further, a core-valence separation of the least-change occupied orbital space is introduced. Numerical results comparing valence basis localized orbitals and canonical molecular orbitals as starting guesses for the full basis localization are presented. The results show that the localization of the occupied orbitals may be performed at a small computational cost if valence basis localized orbitals are used as a starting guess. For the unoccupied space, about half the number of iterations are required if valence localized orbitals are used as a starting guess compared to a canonical set of unoccupied Hartree-Fock orbitals. Different local minima may be obtained when different starting guesses are used. However, the different minima all correspond to orbitals with approximately the same locality.

Pipek-Mezey localization of occupied and virtual orbitals.

Recent advances in orbital localization algorithms are used to minimize the Pipek-Mezey localization function for both occupied and virtual Hartree-Fock orbitals. Virtual Pipek-Mezey orbitals for large molecular systems have previously not been considered in the literature. For this work, the Pipek-Mezey (PM) localization function is implemented for both the Mulliken and a Löwdin population analysis. The results show that the standard PM localization function (using either Mulliken or Löwdin population analyses) may yield local occupied orbitals, although for some systems the occupied orbitals are only semilocal as compared to state-of-the-art localized occupied orbitals. For the virtual orbitals, a Löwdin population analysis shows improvement in locality compared to a Mulliken population analysis, but for both Mulliken and Löwdin population analyses, the virtual orbitals are seen to be considerably less local compared to state-of-the-art localized orbitals.

MP2 energy and density for large molecular systems with internal error control using the Divide-Expand-Consolidate scheme.

Divide-Expand-Consolidate (DEC) is a local correlation method where the inherent locality of the electron correlation problem is used to express the correlated calculation on a large molecular system in terms of small independent fragment calculations employing small subsets of local HF orbitals. A crucial feature of the DEC scheme is that the sizes of the local orbital spaces are determined in a black box manner during the calculation. In this way it is ensured that the correlation energy has been determined to a predefined precision compared to a conventional calculation. In the present work we apply the DEC scheme to calculate the correlation energy as well as the electron density matrix for the insulin molecule using second order Møller-Plesset (MP2) theory. This is the first DEC calculation on a molecular system which is too large to be treated using a conventional MP2 implementation. The fragmentation errors for the insulin DEC calculation are carefully analyzed using internal consistency checks. It is demonstrated that size-intensive properties are determined to the same precision for small and large molecules. For example, the percentage of correlation energy recovered and the error per electron in the correlated density matrix depend only on the predefined precision and not on the molecular size.

Orbital localization using fourth central moment minimization.

We present a new orbital localization function based on the sum of the fourth central moments of the orbitals. To improve the locality, we impose a power on the fourth central moment to act as a penalty on the least local orbitals. With power two, the occupied and virtual Hartree-Fock orbitals exhibit a more rapid tail decay than orbitals from other localization schemes, making them suitable for use in local correlation methods. We propose that the standard orbital spread (the square root of the second central moment) and fourth moment orbital spread (the fourth root of the fourth central moment) are used as complementary measures to characterize the locality of an orbital, irrespective of localization scheme.

The divide-expand-consolidate family of coupled cluster methods: numerical illustrations using second order Møller-Plesset perturbation theory.

Previously, we have introduced the linear scaling coupled cluster (CC) divide-expand-consolidate (DEC) method, using an occupied space partitioning of the standard correlation energy. In this article, we show that the correlation energy may alternatively be expressed using a virtual space partitioning, and that the Lagrangian correlation energy may be partitioned using elements from both the occupied and virtual partitioning schemes. The partitionings of the correlation energy leads to atomic site and pair interaction energies which are term-wise invariant with respect to an orthogonal transformation among the occupied or the virtual orbitals. Evaluating the atomic site and pair interaction energies using local orbitals leads to a linear scaling algorithm and a distinction between Coulomb hole and dispersion energy contributions to the correlation energy. Further, a detailed error analysis is performed illustrating the error control imposed on all components of the energy by the chosen energy threshold. This error control is ultimately used to show how to reduce the computational cost for evaluating dispersion energy contributions in DEC.

Molecular gradient for second-order Møller-Plesset perturbation theory using the divide-expand-consolidate (DEC) scheme.

We demonstrate that the divide-expand-consolidate (DEC) scheme--which has previously been used to determine the second-order Møller-Plesset (MP2) correlation energy--can be applied to evaluate the MP2 molecular gradient in a linear-scaling and embarrassingly parallel manner using a set of local Hartree-Fock orbitals. All manipulations of four-index quantities (describing electron correlation effects) are carried out using small local orbital fragment spaces, whereas two-index quantities are treated for the full molecular system. The sizes of the orbital fragment spaces are determined in a black-box manner to ensure that the error in the DEC-MP2 correlation energy compared to a standard MP2 calculation is proportional to a single input threshold denoted the fragment optimization threshold (FOT). The FOT also implicitly controls the error in the DEC-MP2 molecular gradient as substantiated by a theoretical analysis and numerical results. The development of the DEC-MP2 molecular gradient is the initial step towards calculating higher order energy derivatives for large molecular systems using the DEC framework, both at the MP2 level of theory and for more accurate coupled-cluster methods.

Local orbitals by minimizing powers of the orbital variance.

It is demonstrated that a set of local orthonormal Hartree-Fock (HF) molecular orbitals can be obtained for both the occupied and virtual orbital spaces by minimizing powers of the orbital variance using the trust-region algorithm. For a power exponent equal to one, the Boys localization function is obtained. For increasing power exponents, the penalty for delocalized orbitals is increased and smaller maximum orbital spreads are encountered. Calculations on superbenzene, C(60), and a fragment of the titin protein show that for a power exponent equal to one, delocalized outlier orbitals may be encountered. These disappear when the exponent is larger than one. For a small penalty, the occupied orbitals are more local than the virtual ones. When the penalty is increased, the locality of the occupied and virtual orbitals becomes similar. In fact, when increasing the cardinal number for Dunning's correlation consistent basis sets, it is seen that for larger penalties, the virtual orbitals become more local than the occupied ones. We also show that the local virtual HF orbitals are significantly more local than the redundant projected atomic orbitals, which often have been used to span the virtual orbital space in local correlated wave function calculations. Our local molecular orbitals thus appear to be a good candidate for local correlation methods.

Linear scaling coupled cluster method with correlation energy based error control.

Coupled cluster calculations can be carried out for large molecular systems via a set of calculations that use small orbital fragments of the full molecular orbital space. The error in the correlation energy of the full molecular system is controlled by the precision in the small fragment calculations. The determination of the orbital spaces for the small orbital fragments is black box in the sense that it does not depend on any user-provided molecular fragmentation, rather orbital spaces are carefully selected and extended during the calculation to give fragment energies of a specified precision. The computational method scales linearly with the size of the molecular system and is massively parallel.

Detection of embedded dynamics in the Györgyi-Field model.

The main aim of this paper is to detect embedded dynamics of the Györgyi-Field model of the Belousov-Zhabotinsky chemical reaction. The corresponding three-variable model given as a set of nonlinear ordinary differential equations depends on one parameter, the flow rate. As certain values of this parameter can give rise to chaos, an analysis was performed in order to identify different dynamics regimes. Dynamical properties were qualified and quantified using classical and also new techniques; namely, phase portraits, bifurcation diagrams, the Fourier spectra analysis, the 0-1 test for chaos, approximate entropy, and the maximal Lyapunov exponent. The correlation between approximate entropy and the 0-1 test for chaos was observed and described in detail. The main discovery was that the three-stage system of nested sub-intervals of flow rates showed the same pattern in the 0-1 test for chaos and approximate entropy at every level. The investigation leads to the open problem of whether the set of flow rate parameters has Cantor-like structure.

The CO-Ne van der Waals complex: ab initio intermolecular potential energy, interaction induced electric dipole moment and polarizability surfaces, and second virial coefficients.

The intermolecular potential energy, interaction induced electric dipole moment and polarizability surfaces of the CO-Ne van der Waals complex are calculated using coupled cluster methods and the d-aug-cc-pVTZ basis set extended with a set of 3s3p2d1f1g midbond functions placed in the middle of the van der Waals bond. After fitting the interaction properties to appropriate analytical functions the surfaces are further used in semiclassical calculations of the pressure, the dielectric and the refractivity second virial coefficients of the system. The interaction potential energy surface has a single minimum (-49.9952 cm(-1)), which corresponds to R = 3.383 A and theta = 79.4 degrees. The computed dielectric second virial coefficient B(epsilon) approximately -0.27 cm(6) mol(-2) around the room temperature.

Maximum locality in occupied and virtual orbital spaces using a least-change strategy.

A new strategy is introduced for obtaining localized orthonormal Hartree-Fock (HF) orbitals where the underlying principle is to minimize the size of the transformation matrix from the atomic orbital basis to the HF optimized orbital basis. The new strategy gives both localized occupied and localized virtual orbital spaces. The locality of the occupied orbital space is similar to one obtained using standard localization schemes. For the virtual space, standard localization schemes fail to give local orbitals while the new strategy gives a virtual space which has a locality similar to the one of a Lowdin orthonormalization of the atomic orbital basis. Since Lowdin orthonormalization gives the most local orthonormal basis functions in the sense that they have the largest similarity with the local atomic basis functions, the new strategy thus allows the orthonormal basis to become optimized without introducing significant delocalization.

The augmented Roothaan-Hall method for optimizing Hartree-Fock and Kohn-Sham density matrices.

We present a novel method for the optimization of Hartree-Fock and Kohn-Sham energies that does not suffer from the flaws of the conventionally used two-step Roothaan-Hall (RH) with direct inversion in iterative subspace (DIIS) acceleration scheme, improving the reliability of the optimization while reducing its cost. The key to its success is the replacement of the two separate steps of each RH/DIIS iteration by a single concerted step that fully exploits the Hessian information available from the previous iterations. It is a trust-region based method and therefore by design converges to an energy minimum. Numerical examples are given to illustrate that the algorithm is robust and cost efficient, converging smoothly to a minimum also in cases when the RH/DIIS algorithm fails to converge or when it converges to a saddle point rather than to a minimum. The algorithm is based on matrix multiplications and becomes linearly scaling for sufficiently large systems.

Variational and robust density fitting of four-center two-electron integrals in local metrics.

Density fitting is an important method for speeding up quantum-chemical calculations. Linear-scaling developments in Hartree-Fock and density-functional theories have highlighted the need for linear-scaling density-fitting schemes. In this paper, we present a robust variational density-fitting scheme that allows for solving the fitting equations in local metrics instead of the traditional Coulomb metric, as required for linear scaling. Results of fitting four-center two-electron integrals in the overlap and the attenuated Gaussian damped Coulomb metric are presented, and we conclude that density fitting can be performed in local metrics at little loss of chemical accuracy. We further propose to use this theory in linear-scaling density-fitting developments.

Ab initio study of the two-photon circular dichroism in chiral natural amino acids.

Two-photon circular dichroism spectra calculated within an origin-invariant density functional theory approximation in the absorption region where the lowest electronic excited states appear are presented for all 19 essential amino acids in the gas phase. A comparison of intensities and characteristic features is made with the corresponding two-photon absorption and one-photon circular dichroism spectra for each species. Also, the contributions of the electric dipole, magnetic dipole, and electric quadrupole transitions to the rotational strengths are analyzed in some detail. The remarkable fingerprinting capabilities of the two-photon circular dichroism spectroscopy are highlighted.

The Dalton quantum chemistry program system.

Dalton is a powerful general-purpose program system for the study of molecular electronic structure at the Hartree-Fock, Kohn-Sham, multiconfigurational self-consistent-field, Møller-Plesset, configuration-interaction, and coupled-cluster levels of theory. Apart from the total energy, a wide variety of molecular properties may be calculated using these electronic-structure models. Molecular gradients and Hessians are available for geometry optimizations, molecular dynamics, and vibrational studies, whereas magnetic resonance and optical activity can be studied in a gauge-origin-invariant manner. Frequency-dependent molecular properties can be calculated using linear, quadratic, and cubic response theory. A large number of singlet and triplet perturbation operators are available for the study of one-, two-, and three-photon processes. Environmental effects may be included using various dielectric-medium and quantum-mechanics/molecular-mechanics models. Large molecules may be studied using linear-scaling and massively parallel algorithms. Dalton is distributed at no cost from http://www.daltonprogram.org for a number of UNIX platforms.

Trust Region Minimization of Orbital Localization Functions.

The trust region method has been applied to the minimization of localization functions, and it is shown that both local occupied and local virtual Hartree-Fock (HF) orbitals can be obtained. Because step sizes are size extensive in the trust region method, large steps may be required when the method is applied to large molecular systems. For an exponential parametrization of the localization function only small steps are allowed, and the standard trust radius update therefore has been replaced by a scheme where the direction of the step is determined using a conservative estimate of the trust radius and the length of the step is determined from a line search along the obtained direction. Numerical results for large molecular systems have shown that large steps can then safely be taken, and a robust and nearly monotonic convergence is obtained.

A Locality Analysis of the Divide-Expand-Consolidate Coupled Cluster Amplitude Equations.

We present a thorough locality analysis of the divide-expand-consolidate amplitude equations for second-order Møller-Plesset perturbation theory and the coupled cluster singles doubles (CCSD) model, which demonstrates that the amplitude equations are local when expressed in terms of a set of local occupied and local unoccupied Hartree-Fock orbitals, such as the least-change molecular basis. The locality analysis thus shows that a CC calculation on a large molecular system may be carried out in terms of CC calculations on small orbital fragments of the total molecular system, where the sizes of the orbital fragment spaces are determined in a black box manner to ensure that the CC correlation energy is calculated to a preset energy threshold. A practical implementation of the locality analysis is described, and numerical results are presented, which demonstrate that both the orbital fragment sizes and the relative energy error compared to a full CC calculation are independent of the molecular system size.

Robust and Reliable Multilevel Minimization of the Kohn-Sham Energy.

Kohn-Sham density-functional calculations are used in many branches of science to obtain information about the electronic structure of molecular systems and materials. Conventional algorithms for minimization of the Kohn-Sham energy have certain deficiencies, however, that may cause divergence or, worse, convergence to unphysical saddle points. We here present a three-level hierarchical minimization strategy which is both more efficient and robust than the conventional algorithms and which does not suffer from the flaws of these algorithms. Using the three-level minimization strategy, the molecular density is built up in a hierarchical fashion in accordance with chemical insight: First, the molecular density is composed by a superposition of atomic densities; next, bonds are formed by performing a simple valence-shell optimization; finally, the molecular description is refined by an optimization in the full molecular basis. Importantly, the density matrix generated at each of the two lower levels in this hierarchy is transferred to the next without loss of information. Examples demonstrate the efficacy and robustness of the proposed scheme.

A stepwise atomic, valence-molecular, and full-molecular optimisation of the Hartree-Fock/Kohn-Sham energy.

A hierarchical optimisation strategy has been introduced for minimising the Hartree-Fock/Kohn-Sham energy, consisting of three levels (3L): an atom-in-a-molecule optimisation, a valence-basis molecular optimisation, and a full-basis molecular optimisation. The density matrix formed at one level is used as a starting density matrix at the next level with no loss of information. To ensure a fast and reliable convergence to a minimum, the augmented Roothaan-Hall (ARH) algorithm is used in both the valence-basis and full-basis molecular optimisations. The performance of the ARH-3L method is compared with standard optimisation algorithms. Both for efficiency and reliability, we recommend to use the ARH-3L algorithm.

Strong Two-Photon Circular Dichroism in Helicenes: A Theoretical Investigation.

Using a recently derived origin-invariant quadratic response approach combined with time-dependent density functional theory, four representative helicenes are shown to present a very strong two-photon circular dichroism (TPCD) response, which makes them candidates for the first experimental observation of a TPCD effect. The large response is attributed to the unique combination of chirality and electron delocalization. Comparison with electronic circular dichroism and two-photon absorption (TPA) shows that the three effects exhibit complementary features for unravelling the molecular structures. In particular, for the four (M)-helicenes studied here, the first, i.e., low-energy, dominant Cotton band is always negative, whereas for TPCD it is positive. From an analysis of the frontier orbitals describing most of the one-electron excitation vectors, the largest TPCD response of tetramethoxy-bisquinone-dithia-[7]-helicene has been attributed to the charge-transfer character of the excited state, like for the parent TPA effect. Moreover, the TPCD intensities are found to be mostly governed by the electric and magnetic dipole contributions, while the electric quadrupole terms are, on a relative basis, less important.