We present a reduced-cost implementation of the state-averaged driven similarity renormalization group (SA-DSRG) based on the frozen natural orbital (FNO) approach. The natural orbitals (NOs) are obtained by diagonalizing the one-body reduced density matrix from SA-DSRG second-order perturbation theory (SA-DSRG-PT2). We consider three criteria to truncate the virtual NOs for the subsequent electron correlation treatment beyond SA-DSRG-PT2. An additive second-order correction is applied to the SA-DSRG Hamiltonian to reintroduce correlation effects from the discarded orbitals. The FNO SA-DSRG method is benchmarked on 35 small organic molecules in the QUEST database. When keeping 98–99% of the cumulative occupation numbers, the mean absolute error in the vertical transition energies due to FNO is less than 0.01 eV. Using the same FNO threshold, we observe a speedup of 9 times compared to the conventional SA-DSRG implementation for nickel carbonyl with a quadruple-ζ basis set. The FNO approach enables nonperturbative SA-DSRG computations on chloroiron corrole [FeCl(C 19 H 11 N 4 )] with more than 1000 basis functions, surpassing the current limit of a conventional implementation.
We present a reduced-cost implementation of the state-averaged driven similarity renormalization group (SA-DSRG) based on the frozen natural orbital (FNO) approach. The natural orbitals (NOs) are obtained by diagonalizing the one-body reduced density matrix from SA-DSRG second-order perturbation theory (SA-DSRG-PT2). We consider three criteria to truncate the virtual NOs for the subsequent electron correlation treatment beyond SA-DSRG-PT2. An additive second-order correction is applied to the SA-DSRG Hamiltonian to reintroduce correlation effects from the discarded orbitals. The FNO SA-DSRG method is benchmarked on 35 small organic molecules in the QUEST database. When keeping 98–99% of the cumulative occupation numbers, the mean absolute error in the vertical transition energies due to FNO is less than 0.01 eV. Using the same FNO threshold, we observe a speedup of 9 times compared to the conventional SA-DSRG implementation for nickel carbonyl with a quadruple-ζ basis set. The FNO approach enables nonperturbative SA-DSRG computations on chloroiron corrole [FeCl(C 19 H 11 N 4 )] with more than 1000 basis functions, surpassing the current limit of a conventional implementation.
We present an economical approach to treat spin-orbit coupling (SOC) in the state-averaged driven similarity renormalization group second-order perturbation theory (SA-DSRG-PT2). The electron correlation is first introduced by forming the SA-DSRG-PT2 dressed spin-free Hamiltonian. This Hamiltonian is then augmented with the Breit-Pauli Hamiltonian and diagonalized using spin-pure reference states to obtain the SOC-corrected energy spectrum. The spin-orbit mean-field approximation is also assumed to reduce the cost associated with the two-electron spin-orbit integrals. The resulting method is termed BP1-SA-DSRG-PT2c, and it possesses the same computational scaling as the non-relativistic counterpart, where only the one- and two-body density cumulants are required to obtain the vertical transition energy. The accuracy of BP1-SA-DSRG-PT2c is assessed on a few atoms and small molecules, including main-group diatomic molecules, transition-metal atoms, and actinide dioxide cations. Numerical results suggest that BP1-SA-DSRG-PT2c performs comparably to other internally contracted multireference perturbation theories with SOC treated using the state interaction scheme.
We present a unified frozen natural orbital (FNO) framework for periodic Gaussian-orbital post-Hartree-Fock calculations with explicit k-point sampling. The approach includes conventional ground-state FNOs together with state-specific (SS-FNO) and state-averaged (SA-FNO) variants constructed from perturbative one-particle density matrices. We implement these approximations for periodic Moller-Plesset perturbation theory, algebraic diagrammatic construction, and equation-of-motion coupled cluster methods in the PySCF software package and benchmark them for correlation energies, equations of state, fundamental band gaps, and quasiparticle band structures of semiconductors and insulators. FNO truncation reproduces canonical results with small errors while substantially reducing computational cost. SS-FNO enables accurate large-basis band-gap calculations, including quadruple-zeta results, whereas SA-FNO efficiently compresses the virtual space for multi-state band-structure calculations. Combined with basis-set and thermodynamic-limit extrapolations, the framework provides a practical route to high-accuracy correlated calculations in periodic systems.
We present an open-shell frozen natural orbital (FNO) approach, which utilizes the second-order Z-averaged perturbation theory (ZAPT2), to reduce the restricted open-shell Hartree-Fock virtual space size with controllable accuracy. Our ZAPT2 frozen natural orbital (ZAPT-FNO) selection scheme significantly outperforms the canonical molecular orbital virtual space truncation scheme based on Hartree-Fock orbital energies, especially when using large multiple-polarized and augmented basis sets. We demonstrate that the ZAPT-FNO-selected virtual orbitals lead to a systematic convergence of the correlation energies but, more importantly, to the singlet-triplet T1-S0 energy gaps with respect to the complete active space (CAS) [occupied + virtual] size. We confirm our findings by simulating T1-S0 gaps in H2O2 and O2 molecules using the traditional complete active space configuration interaction (CASCI) approach, as well as in stretched CH2, for which we also employed the iterative qubit coupled cluster (iQCC) method as a quantum eigensolver. Finally, we applied the iQCC method with a ZAPT-FNO-selected active space to the phosphorescent Ir(ppy)3 complex with 260 electrons, where extended basis sets are required to achieve chemical (∼1 mEh) accuracy. In this case, CASCI results are not available; however, the iQCC-computed T1-S0 gaps show robust convergence with an enlarging basis set and CAS size, approaching the experimental value. Thus, the ZAPT-FNO method is very promising for improving the accuracy of quantum chemical modeling in a resource-efficient manner and opens the door to simulating open-shell states of large materials within realistic active space sizes and without compromising on basis-set quality.
We present a new implementation of the driven similarity renormalization group (DSRG) based on a density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) reference. The explicit build of high-order reduced density matrices is avoided by forming matrix-product-state compressed intermediates. This algorithm facilitates the application of DSRG second- and third-order perturbation theories to dodecacene with an active space of 50 electrons in 50 orbitals. This active space appears the largest employed to date within the framework of internally contracted multireference formalism. The DMRG-DSRG approach is applied to several challenging systems, including the singlet–triplet gaps (Δ ST ) of oligoacenes ranging from naphthalene to dodecacene, the vertical excitation energies of zeaxanthin, and the ground-state potential energy curve (PEC) of Cr 2 molecule. Our best estimate for the vertical Δ ST of dodecacene is 0.22 eV, showing an excellent agreement with that of the linearized adiabatic connection method (0.24 eV). For zeaxanthin, all DSRG schemes suggest the order of 2 A g − 1 < 1 B u + 1 < 1 B u − 1 for excited states. Both the equilibrium and the shoulder regions of the Cr 2 PEC are reasonably reproduced by the linearized DSRG with one- and two-body operators.
Applications of the similarity renormalization group (SRG) approach [F. Wegner, Ann. Phys. 506, 77 (1994) and S. D. Głazek and K. G. Wilson, Phys. Rev. D 49, 4214 (1994)] to the formulation of useful many-body theories of electron correlation are considered. In addition to presenting a production-level implementation of the SRG based on a single-reference formalism, a novel integral version of the SRG is reported, in which the flow of the Hamiltonian is driven by a source operator. It is shown that this driven SRG (DSRG) produces a Hamiltonian flow that is analogous to that of the SRG. Compared to the SRG, which requires propagating a set of ordinary differential equations, the DSRG is computationally advantageous since it consists of a set of polynomial equations. The equilibrium distances, harmonic vibrational frequencies, and vibrational anharmonicities of a series of diatomic molecules computed with the SRG and DSRG approximated with one- and two-body normal ordered operators are in good agreement with benchmark values from coupled cluster with singles, doubles, and perturbative triples. Particularly surprising results are found when the SRG and DSRG methods are applied to C2 and F2. In the former case, both methods fail to converge, while in the latter case an unbound potential energy curve is obtained. A modified commutator approximation is shown to correct these problems in the case of the DSRG method.
Projection-based embedding offers a robust framework for modeling chemical processes in large molecular systems. It partitions computations into low-level treatments for the environmental subsystems and high-level treatments for the active subsystems. To address the computational bottleneck of applying high-accuracy wavefunction theory to the active regions, we introduce frozen natural orbitals (FNOs) approach. This technique efficiently compresses the virtual orbital space to generate a compact set of natural orbitals, which significantly accelerates the convergence of correlation energy recovery. We evaluated the FNO-based embedding approach in comparison with two alternative virtual space truncation approaches for a diverse range of molecular systems. Our results demonstrate that the FNO-embedded method exhibits superior performance by delivering accurate correlation energies with a substantially fewer number of virtual orbitals. Its potential for quantum computing is also discussed, as this reduction in orbitals can be directly translated to lower qubit requirements and thereby facilitate the quantum simulations on near-term quantum hardware.