Benchmarking the Accuracy of Seniority-Zero Wave Function Methods for Noncovalent Interactions

In this paper, we scrutinize the ability of seniority-zero wave function-based methods to model different types of noncovalent interactions, such as hydrogen bonds, dispersion, and mixed noncovalent interactions as well as prototypical model systems with various contributions of dynamic and static electron correlation effects. Specifically, we focus on the pair Coupled Cluster Doubles (pCCD) ansatz combined with two different flavors of dynamic energy corrections, (i) based on a perturbation theory correction and (ii) on a linearized coupled cluster ansatz on top of pCCD. We benchmark these approaches against the A24 data set [Rezac and Hobza J. Chem. Theory Comput. 2013, 9, 2151-2155.] extrapolated to the basis set limit and some model noncovalent complexes that feature covalent bond breaking. By dissecting different types of interactions in the A24 data set within the Symmetry-Adapted Perturbation Theory (SAPT) framework, we demonstrate that pCCD can be classified as a dispersion-free method. Furthermore, we found that both flavors of post-pCCD approaches represent encouraging and computationally more efficient alternatives to standard electronic structure methods to model weakly bound systems, resulting in small statistical errors. Finally, a linearized coupled cluster correction on top of pCCD proved to be most reliable for the majority of investigated systems, featuring smaller nonparallelity errors compared to perturbation-theory-based approaches.