Application of a convergent, composite coupled cluster approach to bound state, adiabatic electron affinities in atoms and small molecules

Benchmark quality adiabatic electron affinities for a collection of atoms and small molecules were obtained with the Feller-Peterson-Dixon composite coupled cluster theory method. Prior applications of this method demonstrated its ability to accurately predict atomization energies/heats of formation for more than 170 molecules. In the current work, the 1-particle expansion involved very large correlation consistent basis sets, ranging up to aug-cc-pV9Z (aug-cc-pV10Z for H and H-2), with the goal of minimizing the residual basis set truncation error that must otherwise be approximated with extrapolation formulas. The n-particle expansion begins with coupled cluster calculations through iterative single and double excitations plus a quasiperturbative treatment of connected triple excitations (CCSD(T)) pushed to the complete basis set limit followed by CCSDT, CCSDTQ, or CCSDTQ5 corrections. Due to the small size of the systems examined here, it was possible in many cases to extend the n-particle expansion to the full configuration interaction wave function limit. Additional, smaller corrections associated with core/valence correlation, scalar relativity, anharmonic zero point vibrational energies, and non-adiabatic effects were also included. The overall root mean square (RMS) deviation was 0.005 eV (0.12 kcal/mol). This level of agreement was comparable to what was found with molecular heats of formation. A 95% confidence level corresponds to roughly twice the RMS value or 0.01 eV. While the atomic electron affinities are known experimentally to high accuracy, the molecular values are less certain. This contributes to the difficulty of gauging the accuracy of the theoretical results. A limited number of electron affinities were determined with the explicitly correlated CCSD(T)-F12b method. After extending the VnZ-F12 orbital basis sets with additional diffuse functions, the F12b method was found to accurately reproduce the best F/F-value obtained with standard methods, but it underestimated the CH3/CH3- value by 0.01 eV. (C) 2016 AIP Publishing LLC.