PYSCF is a Python-based general-purpose electronic structure platform that both supports first-principles simulations of molecules and solids, as well as accelerates the development of new methodology and complex computational workflows. The present paper explains the design and philosophy behind PYSCF that enables it to meet these twin objectives. With several case studies, we show how users can easily implement their own methods using PYSCF as a development environment. We then summarize the capabilities of PYSCF for molecular and solid-state simulations. Finally, we describe the growing ecosystem of projects that use PYSCF across the domains of quantum chemistry, materials science, machine learning and quantum information science.

We formulate a quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) method for calculating the ground state of many-boson systems. The method is based on a field-theoretical approach, and is closely related to existing fermion auxiliary-field QMC methods which are applied in several fields of physics. The ground-state projection is implemented as a branching random walk in the space of permanents consisting of identical single-particle orbitals. Any single-particle basis can be used, and the method is in principle exact. We illustrate this method with a trapped atomic boson gas, where the atoms interact via an attractive or repulsive contact two-body potential. We choose as the single-particle basis a real-space grid. We compare with exact results in small systems and arbitrarily sized systems of untrapped bosons with attractive interactions in one dimension, where analytical solutions exist. We also compare with the corresponding Gross-Pitaevskii (GP) mean-field calculations for trapped atoms, and discuss the close formal relation between our method and the GP approach. Our method provides a way to systematically improve upon GP while using the same framework, capturing interaction and correlation effects with a stochastic, coherent ensemble of noninteracting solutions. We discuss various algorithmic issues, including importance sampling and the back-propagation technique for computing observables, and illustrate them with numerical studies. We show results for systems with up to N approximately 400 bosons.

We show that the recently developed phaseless auxiliary-field quantum Monte Carlo (AFQMC) method can be used to study excited states, providing an alternative to standard quantum chemistry methods. The phaseless AFQMC approach, whose computational cost scales as M 3 -M 4 with system size M , has been shown to be among the most accurate many-body methods in ground state calculations. For excited states, prevention of collapse into the ground state and control of the Fermion sign/phase problem are accomplished by the approximate phaseless constraint with a trial wave function. Using the challenging C2 molecule as a test case, we calculate the potential energy curves of the ground and two low-lying singlet excited states. The trial wave function is obtained by truncating complete active space wave functions, with no further optimization. The phaseless AFQMC results using a small basis set are in good agreement with exact full configuration interaction calculations, while those using large basis sets are in good agreement with experimental spectroscopic constants.

The use of an approximate reference state wave function mid R:Phi(r) in electronic many-body methods can break the spin symmetry of Born-Oppenheimer spin-independent Hamiltonians. This can result in significant errors, especially when bonds are stretched or broken. A simple spin-projection method is introduced for auxiliary-field quantum Monte Carlo (AFQMC) calculations, which yields spin-contamination-free results, even with a spin-contaminated mid R:Phi(r). The method is applied to the difficult F(2) molecule, which is unbound within unrestricted Hartree-Fock (UHF). With a UHF mid R:Phi(r), spin contamination causes large systematic errors and long equilibration times in AFQMC in the intermediate, bond-breaking region. The spin-projection method eliminates these problems and delivers an accurate potential energy curve from equilibrium to the dissociation limit using the UHF mid R:Phi(r). Realistic potential energy curves are obtained with a cc-pVQZ basis. The calculated spectroscopic constants are in excellent agreement with experiment.

The pressure-induced structural phase transition from diamond to β-tin in silicon is an excellent test for theoretical total energy methods. The transition pressure provides a sensitive measure of small relative energy changes between the two phases (one a semiconductor and the other a semimetal). Experimentally, the transition pressure is well characterized. Density-functional results have been unsatisfactory. Even the generally much more accurate diffusion Monte Carlo method has shown a noticeable fixed-node error. We use the recently developed phaseless auxiliary-field quantum Monte Carlo (AFQMC) method to calculate the relative energy differences in the two phases. In this method, all but the error due to the phaseless constraint can be controlled systematically and driven to zero. In both structural phases we were able to benchmark the error of the phaseless constraint by carrying out exact unconstrained AFQMC calculations for small supercells. Comparison between the two shows that the systematic error in the absolute total energies due to the phaseless constraint is well within 0.5mEh/atom. Consistent with these internal benchmarks, the transition pressure obtained by the phaseless AFQMC from large supercells is in very good agreement with experiment.PACS numbers: 64.70. 61.50.Ks, 71.15.Nc.

The phaseless auxiliary-field quantum Monte Carlo ͑AF QMC͒ method ͓S. Zhang and H. Krakauer, Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 136401 ͑2003͔͒ is used to carry out a systematic study of the dissociation and ionization energies of second-row group 3A-7A atoms and dimers: Al, Si, P, S, and Cl. In addition, the P 2 dimer is compared to the third-row As 2 dimer, which is also triply bonded. This method projects the many-body ground state by means of importance-sampled random walks in the space of Slater determinants. The Monte Carlo phase problem, due to the electron-electron Coulomb interaction, is controlled via the phaseless approximation, with a trial wave function ͉⌿ T ͘. As in previous calculations, a mean-field single Slater determinant is used as ͉⌿ T ͘. The method is formulated in the Hilbert space defined by any chosen one-particle basis. The present calculations use a plane wave basis under periodic boundary conditions with norm-conserving pseudopotentials. Computational details of the plane wave AF QMC method are presented. The isolated systems chosen here allow a systematic study of the various algorithmic issues. We show the accuracy of the plane wave method and discuss its convergence with respect to parameters such as the supercell size and plane wave cutoff. The use of standard norm-conserving pseudopotentials in the many-body AF QMC framework is examined.

Weak H(2) physisorption energies present a significant challenge to even the best correlated theoretical many-body methods. We use the phaseless auxiliary-field quantum Monte Carlo method to accurately predict the binding energy of Ca(+)-4H(2). Attention has recently focused on this model chemistry to test the reliability of electronic structure methods for H(2) binding on dispersed alkaline earth metal centers. A modified Cholesky decomposition is implemented to realize the Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation efficiently with large Gaussian basis sets. We employ the largest correlation-consistent Gaussian type basis sets available, up to cc-pCV5Z for Ca, to accurately extrapolate to the complete basis limit. The calculated potential energy curve exhibits binding with a double-well structure.

The chromium dimer (Cr2) presents an outstanding challenge for many-body electronic structure methods. Its complicated nature of binding, with a formal sextuple bond and an unusual potential energy curve, is emblematic of the competing tendencies and delicate balance found in many strongly correlated materials. We present a nearexact calculation of the potential energy curve (PEC) and ground state properties of Cr2, using the auxiliary-field quantum Monte Carlo (AFQMC) method. Unconstrained, exact AFQMC calculations are first carried out for a medium-sized but realistic basis set. Elimination of the remaining finite-basis errors and extrapolation to the complete basis set (CBS) limit is then achieved with a combination of phaseless and exact AFQMC calculations. Final results for the PEC and spectroscopic constants are in excellent agreement with experiment. The chromium dimer is a strongly correlated molecule which poses a formidable challenge to even the most accurate many-body methods. It features a formal sextuple bond, with a weak binding energy (∼ 1.5 eV), a short equilibrium bond length (∼ 1.7Å), and an unusual "shoulder" structure in its potential energy curve (PEC). [1][2][3] The ground state of Cr 2 is highly multiconfigurational, and proper theoretical description requires an accurate treatment of the strong 3d electron correlations (both static and dynamic). The nature of the PEC in Cr 2 is representative of the competing tendencies separated by small energy differences seen in many strongly correlated materials. Because of the fundamental and technological significance of such materials, improving our abilities for accurate calculations in strongly correlated systems is one of the most pressing needs in condensed matter physics and quantum chemistry.Standard quantum chemistry methods, such as density functional theory (DFT), Hartree-Fock (HF), and post-HF methods such as single-reference second-order Møller-Plesset perturbation theory (MP2) and single-reference coupled cluster with singles, doubles, and perturbative triples [CCSD(T)], all fail to describe the correct binding of Cr 2 . Representative standard quantum chemistry results are shown in Fig. 1. As often is the case, the DFT results vary greatly, depending on the choice of exchange-correlation functional. There have also been numerous attempts to calculate the PEC of Cr 2 using sophisticated multireference quantum chemistry methods, 4-9 including the complete active space second-order perturbation theory (CASPT2) 10-12 and, more recently, CASPT2 based on a large density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) reference wave function (DMRG-CASPT2). 13 These calculations obtain qualitatively correct binding, but the results are sensitive to choice of active space and/or basis set. Standard quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) approaches 14,15 have also been severely challenged. A recent fixed-node diffusion Monte Carlo (DMC) study, which examined the use of a variety of single-and multi-determinant trial wave functions, did not obtain satisfactory binding (i...