Scaled second-order perturbation corrections to configuration interaction singles: efficient and reliable excitation energy methods.

Two modifications of the perturbative doubles correction to configuration interaction with single substitutions (CIS(D)) are suggested, which are excited state analogues of ground state scaled second-order Møller-Plesset (MP2) methods. The first approach employs two parameters to scale the two spin components of the direct term of CIS(D), starting from the two-parameter spin-component scaled (SCS) MP2 ground state, and is termed SCS-CIS(D). An efficient resolution-of-the-identity (RI) implementation of this approach is described. The second approach employs a single parameter to scale only the opposite-spin direct term of CIS(D), starting from the one-parameter scaled opposite-spin (SOS) MP2 ground state, and is called SOS-CIS(D). By utilizing auxiliary basis expansions and a Laplace transform, a fourth-order algorithm for SOS-CIS(D) is described and implemented. The parameters that describe SCS-CIS(D) and SOS-CIS(D) are optimized based on a training set that includes valence excitations of various organic molecules and Rydberg transitions of water and ammonia, and they significantly improve upon CIS(D) itself. The accuracy of the two methods is found to be comparable. This arises from a strong correlation between the same-spin and the opposite-spin portions of the excitation energy terms. The methods are successfully applied to the zincbacteriochlorin-bacteriochlorin charge-transfer transition, for which time-dependent density functional theory, with presently available exchange-correlation functionals, is known to fail. The methods are also successfully applied to describe various electronic transitions outside of the training set. The efficiency of the SOS-CIS(D) and the auxiliary basis implementation of CIS(D) and SCS-CIS(D) are confirmed with a series of timing tests.