The Usefulness of Exponential Wave Function Expansions Employing One- and Two-Body Cluster Operators in Electronic Structure Theory: The Extended and Generalized Coupled-Cluster Methods

In this paper, the applicability of exponential cluster expansions involving one- and two-body operators in high accuracy ab initio electronic structure calculations is examined. First, the extended coupled-cluster method with singles and doubles (ECCSD) is tested in the demanding studies of systems with strong quasi-degeneracies, including potential energy surfaces involving multiple bond breaking. The numerical results show that the single-reference ECCSD method is capable of providing a qualitatively correct description of quasi-degenerate electronic states and potential energy surfaces involving bond breaking, eliminating, in particular, the failures and the unphysical behavior of standard coupled-cluster methods in similar cases. It is also demonstrated that one can obtain entire potential energy surfaces with millihartree accuracies by combining the ECCSD theory with the non-iterative a posteriori corrections obtained by using the generalized variant of the method of moments of coupled-cluster equations. This is one of the first instances where the relatively simple single-reference formalism, employing only one- and two-body clusters in the design of the relevant energy expressions, provides a highly accurate description of the dynamic and significant non-dynamic correlation effects characterizing quasi-degenerate and multiply bonded systems. Second, an evidence is presented that one may be able to represent the virtually exact ground- and excited-state wave functions of many-electron systems by exponential cluster expansions employing general two-body or one- and two-body operators. Calculations for small many-electron model systems indicate the existence of finite two-body parameters that produce the numerically exact wave functions for ground and excited states. This finding may have a significant impact on future quantum calculations for many-electron systems, since normally one needs triply excited, quadruply excited, and other higher-than-doubly excited Slater determinants, in addition to all singly and doubly excited determinants, to obtain the exact or virtually exact wave functions.