Multireference model chemistries for thermochemical kinetics

By combining the generalized valence bond ansatz of correlated participating orbitals (CPO) with the complete-active-space prescription for selecting configurations and with the use of multireference second order perturbation theory (MRMP2) for including dynamical correlation, we define three levels of multireference (MR) theoretical model chemistries for electronic structure calculations of chemical reaction energies and barrier heights. The three levels differ in their choice of which orbitals are considered to be participating; the choices are called nominal (nom-CPO), moderate (mod-CPO), and extended (ext-CPO). Combining any of these three choices with a method for treatment of dynamical correlation energy and a one-electron basis set yields a theoretical model chemistry. Unlike the full-valence choice of active orbitals, the CPO choices lead to active spaces that contain the orbitals needed to include important static correlation effects on chemical reactions but do not increase with the size of the nonparticipating portion of the system, and hence they remain viable computational options even for many large and complex reacting systems. The accuracies of the new levels, combined with the MG3S basis set (a partially augmented, multiply polarized valence triple-basis with appropriately tight d functions for 3p-block elements) and with the fully augmented correlation-consistent aug-cc-pVTZ basis set, are assessed against a previously presented database of barrier heights for diverse reaction types. We find that nom-CPO level captures the bulk of the static correlation energy, and MRMP2/nom-CPO calculations have an average error of only 1.4 kcal/mol in barrier heights, which may be compared to 5.0 kcal/mol for single-reference MP2 theory, 2.5 kcal/mol for CCSD, and 4.1 and 1.0 kcal/mol for the B3LYP and M06-2X density functionals, respectively. The accuracy of MRMP2/CPO for transition structure bond lengths and donor-acceptor distances is excellent, with a mean unsigned error of only 0.007 angstrom as compared to 0.018 angstrom for CCSD, 0.019 angstrom for M06-2X, and 0.039 angstrom for MP2 and B3LYP. We also introduce a new multireference diagnostic, called the M diagnostic, that allows one to measure the importance of static correlation in a given reagent or transition state.