Articles you may be interested inUsing a pruned basis, a non-product quadrature grid, and the exact Watson normal-coordinate kinetic energy operator to solve the vibrational Schrödinger equation for C2H4 J. Chem. Phys. 135, 064101 (2011); 10.1063/1.3617249Using nonproduct quadrature grids to solve the vibrational Schrödinger equation in 12DA finite basis representation Lanczos calculation of the bend energy levels of methaneWe present a contracted basis-iterative method for calculating numerically exact vibrational energy levels of methane ͑a 9D calculation͒. The basis functions we use are products of eigenfunctions of bend and stretch Hamiltonians obtained by freezing coordinates at equilibrium. The basis functions represent the desired wavefunctions well, yet are simple enough that matrix-vector products may be evaluated efficiently. We use Radau polyspherical coordinates. The bend functions are computed in a nondirect product finite basis representation ͓J. Chem. Phys. 118, 6956 ͑2003͔͒ and the stretch functions are computed in a product potential optimized discrete variable ͑PODVR͒ basis. The memory required to store the bend basis is reduced by a factor of ten by storing it on a compacted grid. The stretch basis is optimized by discarding PODVR functions with high potential energies. The size of the primitive basis is 33 billion. The size of the product contracted basis is six orders of magnitude smaller. Parity symmetry and exchange symmetry between two of the H atoms are employed in the final product contracted basis. A large number of vibrational levels are well converged. These include almost all states up to 8000 cm Ϫ1 and some higher local mode stretch bands.