Toward more accurate adiabatic connection approach for multireference wavefunctions

J Chem Phys. 2023 Feb 7;158(5):054105. doi: 10.1063/5.0131448.

Abstract

A multiconfigurational adiabatic connection (AC) formalism is an attractive approach to compute the dynamic correlation within the complete active space self-consistent field and density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) models. Practical realizations of AC have been based on two approximations: (i) fixing one- and two-electron reduced density matrices (1- and 2-RDMs) at the zero-coupling constant limit and (ii) extended random phase approximation (ERPA). This work investigates the effect of removing the "fixed-RDM" approximation in AC. The analysis is carried out for two electronic Hamiltonian partitionings: the group product function- and the Dyall Hamiltonians. Exact reference AC integrands are generated from the DMRG full configuration interaction solver. Two AC models are investigated, employing either exact 1- and 2-RDMs or their second-order expansions in the coupling constant in the ERPA equations. Calculations for model molecules indicate that lifting the fixed-RDM approximation is a viable way toward improving the accuracy of existing AC approximations.