While methodological developments in the last decade made it possible to compute coupled cluster (CC) energies including excitations up to a perturbative triples correction for molecules containing several hundred atoms, a similar breakthrough has not yet been reported for excited state computations. Accurate CC methods for excited states are still expensive, although some promising candidates for an efficient and accurate excited state CC method have emerged recently. This review examines the various approximation schemes with particular emphasis on their performance for excitation energies and summarizes the best state-of-the-art results which may pave the way for a robust excited state method applicable to molecules of hundreds of atoms.Among these, special attention will be given to exploiting the techniques of similarity transformation, perturbative approximations as well as integral decomposition, local and embedding techniques within the equation of motion CC framework. This article is categorized under: Electronic Structure Theory > Ab Initio Electronic Structure Methods Structure and Mechanism > Molecular Structures K E Y W O R D S accuracy, coupled cluster, efficiency, excited states, single reference
| INTRODUCTIONIn their lucid review written a few years ago, 1 Sneskov and Christiansen discussed the various coupled cluster (CC) methods available for excited states. Using the systematic machinery of response theory, they described a hierarchy of methods, established a link between response theory and equation of motion (EOM) methods, and finished by discussing a number of approaches that might be used to reduce the computational cost. The present review aims at providing an overview of efficient methods available primarily for large molecules, and hence the emphasis will be laid more upon recent methodological advances which reduce the cost and on the extent this affects the accuracy of these methods. For ground state calculations, choosing a reference method for benchmarks is quite easy, since the CC singles doubles and perturbative triples, or CCSD(T), ansatz 2 is not only widely regarded as the gold standard of quantum chemistry, but it has also recently become possible to compute CCSD(T) energies for molecules containing several hundred atoms. 3 For excited states, progress has been