The developments of the open-source chemistry software environment since spring 2020 are described, with a focus on novel functionalities accessible in the stable branch of the package or via interfaces with other packages. These developments span a wide range of topics in computational chemistry and are presented in thematic sections: electronic structure theory, electronic spectroscopy simulations, analytic gradients and molecular structure optimizations, ab initio molecular dynamics, and other new features. This report offers an overview of the chemical phenomena and processes can address, while showing that is an attractive platform for state-of-the-art atomistic computer simulations.

In this article the recent developments of the open-source OpenMolcas chemistry software environment, since spring 2020, are described, with the main focus on novel functionalities that are accessible in the stable branch of the package and/or via interfaces with other packages. These community developments span a wide range of topics in computational chemistry, and are presented in thematic sections associated with electronic structure theory, electronic spectroscopy simulations, analytic gradients and molecular structure optimizations, ab initio molecular dynamics, and other new features. This report represents a useful summary of these developments, and it offers a solid overview of the chemical phenomena and processes that OpenMolcas can address, while showing that OpenMolcas is an attractive platform for state-of-the-art atomistic computer simulations.

In this article the recent developments of the open-source OpenMolcas chemistry software environment, since spring 2020, are described, with the main focus on novel functionalities that are accessible in the stable branch of the package and/or via interfaces with other packages. These community developments span a wide range of topics in computational chemistry, and are presented in thematic sections associated with electronic structure theory, electronic spectroscopy simulations, analytic gradients and molecular structure optimizations, ab initio molecular dynamics, and other new features. This report represents a useful summary of these developments, and it offers a solid overview of the chemical phenomena and processes that OpenMolcas can address, while showing that OpenMolcas is an attractive platform for state-of-the-art atomistic computer simulations.

We characterise the photochemically relevant conical intersections between the lowest-lying accessible electronic excited states of the different DNA/RNA nucleobases using Cholesky decomposition-based complete active space selfconsistent field (CASSCF) algorithms. We benchmark two different basis set contractions and several active spaces for each nucleobase and conical intersection type, measuring for the first time how active space size affects conical intersection topographies in these systems, and the potential implications these may have towards their description of photoinduced phenomena. Our results show conical intersection topographies are highly sensitive to the electron correlation included in the model: by changing the amount (and type) of correlated orbitals, conical intersection topographies vastly change, and the changes observed do not follow any converging pattern towards the topographies obtained with the largest and most correlated active spaces. Comparison across systems shows anal- ogous topographies for almost all intersections mediating population transfer to the dark ¹nO/Nπ* states, while no similarities are observed for the “ethylene-like” conical intersection ascribed to mediate the ultrafast decay component to the ground state in all DNA/RNA nucleobases. Basis set size seems to have a minor effect, appearing to be only relevant for purine-based derivatives. We rule out structural changes as a key factor in classifying the different conical intersections, which display almost identical geometries across active space and basis set change, and highlight instead the importance of correctly describing the electronic states involved at these crossing points. Our work shows careful active space selection is essential to accurately describe conical intersection topographies, and therefore to adequately account for their active role in molecular photochemistry.

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Research on excited-state chemistry using multiconfigurational quantum chemistry (MQC) allows deep analyses of the involved electronic-structure transformations. Overview of the published bibliography in the 2020 and 2021 period shows predominant MQC research on biomedicine and materials science. Significant work on method developments has been also carried out, and applications in atmospheric chemistry are gaining interest as compared to previous years. Topics that are representative of the progress, and are revised herein, are methodology developments for more realistic predictions of UV/Vis absorption and emission spectra, sunlight chemistry on atmospheric modelling, DNA photostability and photosensitisation, DNA reactivity by ionising radiation, chemiluminescence and self-illuminating photosensitisation, DNA repair mechanisms and quantum computing applications in photochemistry.

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