A summary of the technical advances that are incorporated in the fourth major release of the Q-Chem quantum chemistry program is provided, covering approximately the last seven years. These include developments in density functional theory methods and algorithms, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) property evaluation, coupled cluster and perturbation theories, methods for electronically excited and openshell species, tools for treating extended environments, algorithms for walking on potential surfaces, analysis tools, energy and electron transfer modelling, parallel computing capabilities, and graphical user interfaces. In addition, a selection of example case studies that illustrate these capabilities is given. These include extensive benchmarks of the comparative accuracy of modern density functionals for bonded and non-bonded interactions, tests of attenuated second order Møller-Plesset (MP2) methods for intermolecular interactions, a variety of parallel performance benchmarks, and tests of the accuracy of implicit solvation models. Some specific chemical examples include calculations on the strongly correlated Cr 2 dimer, exploring zeolitecatalysed ethane dehydrogenation, energy decomposition analysis of a charged ter-molecular complex arising from glycerol photoionisation, and natural transition orbitals for a Frenkel exciton state in a nine-unit model of a self-assembling nanotube.Keywords quantum chemistry, software, electronic structure theory, density functional theory, electron correlation, computational modelling, Q-Chem Disciplines Chemistry CommentsThis article is from Molecular Physics: An International Journal at the Interface Between Chemistry and Physics 113 (2015): 184, doi:10.1080/00268976.2014. RightsWorks produced by employees of the U.S. Government as part of their official duties are not copyrighted within the U.S. The content of this document is not copyrighted. Authors 185A summary of the technical advances that are incorporated in the fourth major release of the Q-CHEM quantum chemistry program is provided, covering approximately the last seven years. These include developments in density functional theory methods and algorithms, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) property evaluation, coupled cluster and perturbation theories, methods for electronically excited and open-shell species, tools for treating extended environments, algorithms for walking on potential surfaces, analysis tools, energy and electron transfer modelling, parallel computing capabilities, and graphical user interfaces. In addition, a selection of example case studies that illustrate these capabilities is given. These include extensive benchmarks of the comparative accuracy of modern density functionals for bonded and non-bonded interactions, tests of attenuated second order Møller-Plesset (MP2) methods for intermolecular interactions, a variety of parallel performance benchmarks, and tests of the accuracy of implicit solvation models. Some specific chemical examples include calculations on the strongly corre...

We have developed a new quantum Monte Carlo method for the simulation of correlated many-electron systems in full configuration-interaction (Slater determinant) spaces. The new method is a population dynamics of a set of walkers, and is designed to simulate the underlying imaginary-time Schrödinger equation of the interacting Hamiltonian. The walkers (which carry a positive or negative sign) inhabit Slater determinant space, and evolve according to a simple set of rules which include spawning, death and annihilation processes. We show that this method is capable of converging onto the full configuration-interaction (FCI) energy and wave function of the problem, without any a priori information regarding the nodal structure of the wave function being provided. Walker annihilation is shown to play a key role. The pattern of walker growth exhibits a characteristic plateau once a critical (system-dependent) number of walkers has been reached. At this point, the correlation energy can be measured using two independent methods--a projection formula and a energy shift; agreement between these provides a strong measure of confidence in the accuracy of the computed correlation energies. We have verified the method by performing calculations on systems for which FCI calculations already exist. In addition, we report on a number of new systems, including CO, O(2), CH(4), and NaH--with FCI spaces ranging from 10(9) to 10(14), whose FCI energies we compute using modest computational resources.

This article summarizes technical advances contained in the fifth major release of the Q-Chem quantum chemistry program package, covering developments since 2015. A comprehensive library of exchange–correlation functionals, along with a suite of correlated many-body methods, continues to be a hallmark of the Q-Chem software. The many-body methods include novel variants of both coupled-cluster and configuration-interaction approaches along with methods based on the algebraic diagrammatic construction and variational reduced density-matrix methods. Methods highlighted in Q-Chem 5 include a suite of tools for modeling core-level spectroscopy, methods for describing metastable resonances, methods for computing vibronic spectra, the nuclear–electronic orbital method, and several different energy decomposition analysis techniques. High-performance capabilities including multithreaded parallelism and support for calculations on graphics processing units are described. Q-Chem boasts a community of well over 100 active academic developers, and the continuing evolution of the software is supported by an “open teamware” model and an increasingly modular design.

The full configuration interaction quantum Monte Carlo (FCIQMC) method, as well as its "initiator" extension (i-FCIQMC), is used to tackle the complex electronic structure of the carbon dimer across the entire dissociation reaction coordinate, as a prototypical example of a strongly correlated molecular system. Various basis sets of increasing size up to the large cc-pVQZ are used, spanning a fully accessible N-electron basis of over 10(12) Slater determinants, and the accuracy of the method is demonstrated in each basis set. Convergence to the FCI limit is achieved in the largest basis with only O[10(7)] walkers within random errorbars of a few tenths of a millihartree across the binding curve, and extensive comparisons to FCI, CCSD(T), MRCI, and CEEIS results are made where possible. A detailed exposition of the convergence properties of the FCIQMC methods is provided, considering convergence with elapsed imaginary time, number of walkers and size of the basis. Various symmetries which can be incorporated into the stochastic dynamic, beyond the standard abelian point group symmetry and spin polarisation are also described. These can have significant benefit to the computational effort of the calculations, as well as the ability to converge to various excited states. The results presented demonstrate a new benchmark accuracy in basis-set energies for systems of this size, significantly improving on previous state of the art estimates.

Using the method of self-consistent field metadynamics, we locate some of the low-energy solutions to the Hartree-Fock (HF) equations on LiF and O(3). The located solutions qualitatively resemble the adiabatic electronic states in these systems. We formulate the method of nonorthogonal Configuration Interaction (CI) to interact these solutions with cubic scaling with system size and quadratic scaling with the number of solutions. The resultant solutions display the avoided crossings and, in O(3), a conical intersection expected of the adiabatic states. In LiF the relevant solutions coalesce and disappear from Unrestricted HF space indicating a more general HF theory is required.

We propose a method for calculation of oxidation states in transition metal complexes, utilizing a bonding analysis based on localized molecular orbitals in conjunction with traditional population analyses. The localized orbital bonding analysis (LOBA) is seen to accurately produce both the oxidation state and chemically intuitive views of bonding in the complexes studied. This is in contrast to simple population analyses where the oxidation states are not reproduced for even simple systems and more complex analyses which break down on problematic systems. We report the application to a manganese complex with potential activity as oxygen-evolving catalyst, determining the location of the oxidations.

We describe a stochastic coupled cluster theory which represents excitation amplitudes as discrete excitors in the space of excitation amplitudes. Reexpressing the coupled cluster (CC) equations as the dynamics of excitors in this space, we show that a simple set of rules suffices to evolve a distribution of excitors to sample the CC solution and correctly evaluate the CC energy. These rules are not truncation specific and this method can calculate CC solutions to an arbitrary level of truncation. We present results of calculation on the neon atom, and nitrogen and water molecules showing the ability to recover both truncated and full CC results.

We propose a method to locate the solutions to the self-consistent field (SCF) equations, using an approach based upon metadynamics. We define a distance function between density matrices. Within an SCF calculation, when a solution is found, a biasing potential based on distance from the solution is added to the energy to avoid reconvergence to the same solution. Multiple solutions can therefore be relatively easily found. Using this method we locate all known solutions and one unknown solution of the H4 model. The set of restricted Hartree-Fock (RHF) solutions for the nitrogen molecule is located, and a broken-symmetry solution lower in energy than the symmetric RHF solution is found corresponding to dissociation into doublet fragments.