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The Journal of Chemical Physics

A perturbative triples correction scheme to relativistic quadratic unitary coupled cluster method: Theory, implementation and benchmarking

Kamal Majee, Ján Šimunek, Jozef Noga, Achintya Kumar Dutta

Published Jan 23, 2026• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We present a non-iterative triples correction to the relativistic quadratic unitary coupled cluster singles and doubles (qUCCSD) method, denoted as qUCCSD[T]. The method builds upon the Hermitian structure of the similarity-transformed Hamiltonian in the unitary coupled cluster method and can be derived by using perturbational truncation to the unitary coupled cluster energy functional. Relativistic effects are incorporated using the exact two-component atomic mean-field Hamiltonian, and the computational cost is further reduced through the frozen natural spinor and the Cholesky decomposition approximations. Benchmark results demonstrate that qUCCSD[T] outperforms previously proposed triples corrections to the unitary coupled cluster method and yields excellent agreement with experimental data and Full CI results. In addition, the method shows high accuracy in computing the bond dissociation enthalpies, molecular geometries, vibrational frequencies, ionization potentials, and electron affinities of heavy-element-containing systems. The new qUCCSD[T] method is competitive to popular CCSD(T) even on a classical computer.

DOI
10.1063/5.0305523

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We present a non-iterative triples correction to the relativistic quadratic unitary coupled cluster singles and doubles (qUCCSD) method, denoted as qUCCSD[T]. The method builds upon the Hermitian structure of the similarity-transformed Hamiltonian in the unitary coupled cluster method and can be derived by using perturbational truncation to the unitary coupled cluster energy functional. Relativistic effects are incorporated using the exact two-component atomic mean-field Hamiltonian, and the computational cost is further reduced through the frozen natural spinor and the Cholesky decomposition approximations. Benchmark results demonstrate that qUCCSD[T] outperforms previously proposed triples corrections to the unitary coupled cluster method and yields excellent agreement with experimental data and Full CI results. In addition, the method shows high accuracy in computing the bond dissociation enthalpies, molecular geometries, vibrational frequencies, ionization potentials, and electron affinities of heavy-element-containing systems. The new qUCCSD[T] method is competitive to popular CCSD(T) even on a classical computer.
An efficient implementation of the quadratic unitary coupled-cluster singles and doubles (qUCCSD) scheme for calculations of electronic ground and excited states using an unrestricted molecular spin–orbital formulation and an efficient tensor contraction library is reported. The accuracy of the qUCCSD scheme and the efficiency of the present implementation are demonstrated using extensive benchmark calculations of excitation energies and an application to S 0 → S 1 vertical excitation energies for cis - and trans -4 a,4 b- dihydrotriphenylene. The qUCCSD scheme has been shown to provide improved excitation energies compared with the UCC3 scheme formulated based on perturbation theory. A UCC truncation scheme that can provide excitation energies correct through the fourth order is also presented to further improve the accuracy of the qUCCSD scheme.
The development of a quadratic unitary coupled-cluster singles and doubles (qUCCSD) based self-consistent polarization propagator method is reported. We present a simple strategy for truncating the commutator expansion of the unitary version of coupled-cluster transformed Hamiltonian H̄. The qUCCSD method for the electronic ground state includes up to double commutators for the amplitude equations and up to cubic commutators for the energy expression. The qUCCSD excited-state eigenvalue equations include up to double commutators for the singles-singles block of H̄, single commutators for the singles-doubles and doubles-singles blocks, and the bare Hamiltonian for the doubles-doubles block. Benchmark qUCCSD calculations of the ground-state properties and excitation energies for representative molecules demonstrate significant improvement of the accuracy and robustness over the previous UCC3 scheme derived using Møller-Plesset perturbation theory.
In this work, we introduce a perturbative correction to the unitary coupled cluster method with single and double excitations (UCCSD) that incorporates the effects of missing triple excitations through fifth-order in many-body perturbation theory (MBPT). Referred to as UCCSD[T-5], this method is benchmarked alongside the previously developed UCCSD[T] to lend insight into the behavior of perturbative triples corrections relative to UCCSDT, which inherently provides an infinite-order treatment of triple excitations, as well as full configuration interaction (FCI). Two key findings emerge from this analysis. First, UCCSD[T] consistently yields ground-state energies in closest agreement with FCI, outperforming both UCCSD[T-5] and UCCSDT. Second, UCCSD[T-5] largely emulates the behavior of UCCSDT, suggesting a close relationship between fifth- and infinite-order triple-excitation contributions. Given the growing interest in UCC ansätze for quantum computing and the limitations of current quantum hardware, these results highlight the potential of classically computed perturbative corrections within UCC theory to capture triple-excitation effects without the additional quantum resources required by the UCCSDT ansatz.
We propose a non-iterative, post-hoc correction to the unitary coupled cluster theory with the single, double, and triple excitations (UCCSDT) Ansatz, which considers the leading-order effects of neglected quadruple excitations. We present two ways to derive this correction, henceforth referred to as [Q-6], which leads to an improvement in the correlation energy shown to be truncated to sixth-order in many-body perturbation theory. A comparison between the UCC-based [Q-6] correction proposed in this work and analogous, "platinum standard" quadruple corrections proposed in conventional coupled cluster theory recognizes that [Q-6] is distinct from prior corrections since it is constructed entirely from internally connected components. Although trotterized (t) and full operator variants of UCCSDT exhibit errors in scans of small molecule potential energy surfaces that routinely exceed 1.6 mH, we find that t/UCCSDT[Q-6] is, nevertheless, able to achieve chemical accuracy as measured by the mean unsigned error.
This work introduces various approaches to include connected three-body terms in unitary many-body theories, focusing on the driven similarity renormalization group (DSRG). Starting from the least approximate method-the linearized DSRG truncated to one-, two-, and three-body operators [LDSRG(3)]-we develop several approximate LDSRG(3) models with reduced computational cost. Through a perturbative analysis, we motivate a family of iterative LDSRG(3)-n and -n' (n = 1, 2, 3, 4) methods that contain a subset of the LDSRG(3) diagrams. Among these variants, the LDSRG(3)-2 scheme has the same computational complexity of coupled cluster theory with singles, doubles, and triples (CCSDT), but it outperforms CCSDT in the accuracy of the predicted correlation energies. We also propose and implement two perturbative triples corrections based on the linearized DSRG truncated to one- and two-body operators augmented with recursive semi-quadratic commutators [qDSRG(2)]. The resulting qDSRG(2)+(T) approach matches the accuracy of the "gold-standard" coupled cluster theory with singles, doubles, and perturbative triples model on the energetics of twenty-eight closed-shell atoms and small molecules.
A major difficulty in quantum simulation is the adequate treatment of a large collection of entangled particles, synonymous with electron correlation in electronic structure theory, with coupled cluster (CC) theory being the leading framework for dealing with this problem. Augmenting computationally affordable low-rank approximations in CC theory with a perturbative account of higher-rank excitations is a tractable and effective way of accounting for the missing electron correlation in those approximations. This is perhaps best exemplified by the "gold standard" CCSD(T) method, which bolsters the baseline CCSD with the effects of triple excitations using considerations from many-body perturbation theory (MBPT). Despite this established success, such a synergy between MBPT and the unitary analog of CC theory (UCC) has not been explored. In this work, we propose a similar approach wherein converged UCCSD amplitudes are leveraged to evaluate energy corrections associated with triple excitations, leading to the UCCSD[T] method. In terms of quantum computing, this correction represents an entirely classical post-processing step that improves the energy estimate by accounting for triple excitation effects without necessitating new quantum algorithm developments or increasing demand for quantum resources. The rationale behind this choice is shown to be rigorous by studying the properties of finite-order UCC energy functionals, and our efforts do not support the addition of the fifth-order contributions as in the (T) correction. We assess the performance of these approaches on a collection of small molecules and demonstrate the benefits of harnessing the inherent synergy between MBPT and UCC theories.