Higher excitations in coupled-cluster theory

The viability of treating higher excitations in coupled-cluster theory is discussed. An algorithm is presented for solving coupled-cluster (CC) equations which can handle any excitation. Our method combines the formalism of diagrammatic many-body perturbation theory and string-based configuration interaction (CI). CC equations are explicitly put down in terms of antisymmetrized diagrams and a general method is proposed for the factorization of the corresponding algebraic expressions. Contractions between cluster amplitudes and intermediates are evaluated by a string-based algorithm. In contrast to our previous developments [J. Chem. Phys. 113, 1359 (2000)] the operation count of this new method scales roughly as the (2n+2)nd power of the basis set size where n is the highest excitation in the cluster operator. As a by-product we get a completely new CI formalism which is effective for solving both truncated and full CI problems. Generalization for approximate CC models as well as multireference cases is also discussed. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.