Issue 26, 2022

Electronic structure of strongly correlated systems: recent developments in multiconfiguration pair-density functional theory and multiconfiguration nonclassical-energy functional theory

Abstract

Strong electron correlation plays an important role in transition-metal and heavy-metal chemistry, magnetic molecules, bond breaking, biradicals, excited states, and many functional materials, but it provides a significant challenge for modern electronic structure theory. The treatment of strongly correlated systems usually requires a multireference method to adequately describe spin densities and near-degeneracy correlation. However, quantitative computation of dynamic correlation with multireference wave functions is often difficult or impractical. Multiconfiguration pair-density functional theory (MC-PDFT) provides a way to blend multiconfiguration wave function theory and density functional theory to quantitatively treat both near-degeneracy correlation and dynamic correlation in strongly correlated systems; it is more affordable than multireference perturbation theory, multireference configuration interaction, or multireference coupled cluster theory and more accurate for many properties than Kohn–Sham density functional theory. This perspective article provides a brief introduction to strongly correlated systems and previously reviewed progress on MC-PDFT followed by a discussion of several recent developments and applications of MC-PDFT and related methods, including localized-active-space MC-PDFT, generalized active-space MC-PDFT, density-matrix-renormalization-group MC-PDFT, hybrid MC-PDFT, multistate MC-PDFT, spin–orbit coupling, analytic gradients, and dipole moments. We also review the more recently introduced multiconfiguration nonclassical-energy functional theory (MC-NEFT), which is like MC-PDFT but allows for other ingredients in the nonclassical-energy functional. We discuss two new kinds of MC-NEFT methods, namely multiconfiguration density coherence functional theory and machine-learned functionals.

Graphical abstract: Electronic structure of strongly correlated systems: recent developments in multiconfiguration pair-density functional theory and multiconfiguration nonclassical-energy functional theory

Article information

Article type
Perspective
Submitted
16 2月 2022
Accepted
01 6月 2022
First published
07 6月 2022
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY license

Chem. Sci., 2022,13, 7685-7706

Electronic structure of strongly correlated systems: recent developments in multiconfiguration pair-density functional theory and multiconfiguration nonclassical-energy functional theory

C. Zhou, M. R. Hermes, D. Wu, J. J. Bao, R. Pandharkar, D. S. King, D. Zhang, T. R. Scott, A. O. Lykhin, L. Gagliardi and D. G. Truhlar, Chem. Sci., 2022, 13, 7685 DOI: 10.1039/D2SC01022D

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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