arXiv:2310.01764 · The Journal of Chemical Physics
Coupled cluster-inspired geminal wavefunctions
Pratiksha B. Gaikwad, Taewon David Kim, Michelle Richer, Rugwed A. Lokhande, Gabriela Sánchez‐Díaz, Peter A. Limacher, Paul W. Ayers, Ramón Alain Miranda‐Quintana
Electron pairs have an illustrious history in chemistry, from powerful concepts to understanding structural stability and reactive changes to the promise of serving as building blocks of quantitative descriptions of the electronic structure of complex molecules and materials. However, traditionally, two-electron wavefunctions (geminals) have not enjoyed the popularity and widespread use of the more standard single-particle methods. This has changed recently, with a renewed interest in the development of geminal wavefunctions as an alternative to describing strongly correlated phenomena. Hence, there is a need to find geminal methods that are accurate, computationally tractable, and do not demand significant input from the user (particularly via cumbersome and often ill-behaved orbital optimization steps). Here, we propose new families of geminal wavefunctions inspired by the pair coupled cluster doubles ansatz. We present a new hierarchy of two-electron wavefunctions that extends the one-reference orbital idea to other geminals. Moreover, we show how to incorporate single-like excitations in this framework without leaving the quasiparticle picture. We explore the role of imposing seniority restrictions on these wavefunctions and benchmark these new methods on model strongly correlated systems.
Electron pairs have an illustrious history in chemistry, from powerful concepts to understanding structural stability and reactive changes to the promise of serving as building blocks of quantitative descriptions of the electronic structure of complex molecules and materials. However, traditionally, two-electron wavefunctions (geminals) have not enjoyed the popularity and widespread use of the more standard single-particle methods. This has changed recently, with a renewed interest in the development of geminal wavefunctions as an alternative to describing strongly correlated phenomena. Hence, there is a need to find geminal methods that are accurate, computationally tractable, and do not demand significant input from the user (particularly via cumbersome and often ill-behaved orbital optimization steps). Here, we propose new families of geminal wavefunctions inspired by the pair coupled cluster doubles ansatz. We present a new hierarchy of two-electron wavefunctions that extends the one-reference orbital idea to other geminals. Moreover, we show how to incorporate single-like excitations in this framework without leaving the quasiparticle picture. We explore the role of imposing seniority restrictions on these wavefunctions and benchmark these new methods on model strongly correlated systems.
Geminal wavefunctions, introduced in the late 1950s, have long been recognized for their ability to compactly capture strong electron correlation. Despite their promise, they were historically overshadowed by more computationally efficient methods. Advances in both computational resources and theoretical frameworks have renewed interest in geminal-based approaches, particularly as researchers seek accurate yet tractable wavefunctions for complex electronic systems. Recent developments highlight their versatility: from serving as efficient starting points for correlated wavefunctions, to hybrid formulations that blend geminal concepts with coupled-cluster theory, to emerging applications in quantum algorithms where orbital-pairing provides a natural structure. In this mini-review, we summarize key advances in geminal wavefunction theory, with a focus on their modern resurgence, new methodological innovations, and potential directions for electronic structure theory and quantum computation.
The Lewis electron-pair picture pervades all of chemistry and a substantialdomain of materials science. “Geminals” are electron-pair quantum states whichare used to express approximate solutions of the Schrödinger equation of polyelec-tronic systems. In quantum chemistry, geminal-based methods are potentially moreeffective than the traditional ones based on the orbital picture: electrons occupyorbitals and experience only the average effect of each other. This is especially truefor strongly correlated-systems. However, the computational cost of using arbitrarygeminal wave functions is non-polynomial in the system size.It is therefore an important challenge to find additional constraints on geminalmodels which preserve the accuracy of the wavefunction description while reducingthe calculations to polynomial cost. The Ayers’ group at Mc Master has developedone such successful geminal model called AP1roG because the wavefunction is anantisymmetric product of geminals with one distinct reference orbital occupied ineach geminal [1]. This ansatz relaxes the so-called “strong-orthogonality” constraintbetween geminals. The latter makes wavefunction matrix element computationsvery easy but appears too drastic from the physical point of view, since the geminalelectron pairs are then distinguishable.We have followed a different path to relax the strong-orthogonality constraint. Wehave defined the geometrical concept of n-orthogonality [2] which can be viewed asa graded indistinguishability measure for electronic states: 1-orthogonality coincideswith strong orthogonality, the larger n the less distinguishable the n-orthogonal elec-tronic states will be. We have studied geminal models constrained by n-orthogonalityrelations for different values of n, imposed to different combinations of geminal prod-uct states [3]. However, in this work the scaling of matrix element computations wasstill unsatisfactory. We will present new ideas developed since then to remedy thisproblem.References[1] P. A Limacher, P. W. Ayers, P. A. Johnson, S. De Baerdemacker, D. Van Neck and P. Bultinck, J. of Chem. Theory and Computation 9, 1394-1401 (2013).[2] P. Cassam-Chenaı̈, Phys. Rev. A77, 032103 (2008).[3] P. Cassam-Chenaı̈, V. Rassolov, Chem. Phys. Lett. 487, 147-152 (2010).
We introduce a novel class of coupled cluster (CC) methods that leverage the seniority concept to enhance efficiency and accuracy in electronic structure calculations. While existing approaches, such as the pair coupled cluster doubles (pCCD) method, are limited to seniority-zero (Ω = 0) wavefunctions,1 we propose a more flexible framework: seniority-restricted coupled cluster (sr-CC). This new methodology selectively constrains the seniority sectors accessible through excitation operators in the cluster expansion, enabling a more systematic exploration of electron correlation effects. By balancing computational cost and accuracy, sr-CC provides a promising pathway for advancing electronic structure theory, particularly in strongly correlated systems.
In this review, we discuss the recent progress in developing geminal-based theories for challenging problems in quantum chemistry. Specifically, we focus on the antisymmetrized geminal power, generalized valence bond, antisymmetrized product of strongly orthogonal geminals, singlet-type orthogonal geminals, the antisymmetric product of 1-reference orbital geminal, also known as the pair coupled cluster doubles ansatz, and geminals constructed from Richardson-Gaudin states. Furthermore, we review various corrections to account for the missing dynamical correlation effects in geminal models and possible extensions to target electronically excited states and open-shell species. Finally, we discuss some numerical examples and present-day challenges for geminal-based models, including a quantitative and qualitative analysis of wave functions, and software availability.
Wave functions constructed from electron-pair states can accurately model strong electron correlation effects and are promising approaches especially for larger many-body systems. In this article, we analyze the nature and the type of electron correlation effects that can be captured by wave functions restricted to electron-pair states. We focus on the pair-coupled-cluster doubles (pCCD) ansatz also called the antisymmetric product of the 1-reference orbital geminal (AP1roG) method, combined with an orbital optimization protocol presented in Boguslawski et al. [Phys. Rev. B 89, 201106(R) (2014)], whose performance is assessed against electronic structures obtained form density-matrix renormalization-group reference data. Our numerical analysis covers model systems for strong correlation: the one-dimensional Hubbard model with a periodic boundary condition as well as metallic and molecular hydrogen rings. Specifically, the accuracy of pCCD/AP1roG is benchmarked using the single-orbital entropy, the orbital-pair mutual information, as well as the eigenvalue spectrum of the one-orbital and two-orbital reduced density matrices. Our study indicates that contributions from singly occupied states become important in the strong correlation regime which highlights the limitations of the pCCD/AP1roG method. Furthermore, we examine the effect of orbital rotations within the pCCD/AP1roG model on correlations between orbital pairs.
The Coupled Cluster (CC) method is used to compute the electronic correlation energy in atoms and molecules and often leads to highly accurate results. However, due to its single-reference nature, standard CC in its projected form fails to describe quantum states characterized by strong electronic correlations and multi-reference projective methods become necessary. On the other hand, quantum algorithms for the solution of many-electron problems have also emerged recently. The quantum unitary variant of CC (UCC) with singles and doubles (q-UCCSD) is a popular wavefunction Ansatz for the variational quantum eigensolver algorithm. The variational nature of this approach can lead to significant advantages compared to its classical equivalent in the projected form, in particular, for the description of strong electronic correlation. However, due to the large number of gate operations required in q-UCCSD, approximations need to be introduced in order to make this approach implementable in a state-of-the-art quantum computer. In this work, we evaluate several variants of the standard q-UCCSD Ansatz in which only a subset of excitations is included. In particular, we investigate the singlet and pair q-UCCD approaches combined with orbital optimization. We show that these approaches can capture the dissociation/distortion profiles of challenging systems, such as H4, H2O, and N2 molecules, as well as the one-dimensional periodic Fermi–Hubbard chain. These results promote the future use of q-UCC methods for the solution of challenging electronic structure problems in quantum chemistry.