Canonical and explicitly-correlated coupled cluster correlation energies of sub-kJ mol−1 accuracy via cost-effective hybrid-post-CBS extrapolation

Cost-effectiveness and accuracy are two basic pillars in electronic structure calculations. While cost-effectiveness enhances applicability, high accuracy is sustained when employing advanced computational tools. With the gold standard method of ab initio quantum chemistry at the focal point, canonical CCSD(T) and modern explicitly correlated CCSD(T)-F12 calculations are employed hand in hand to develop accurate hybrid post-CBS extrapolation schemes, which are validated using popular training sets involving a total of 130 molecules. By using raw valence-only calculations at CCSD(T)/VDZ and CCSD(T)/VQZ-F12 levels of theory, the novel scheme leads to the prediction of absolute energies that differ on average (−0.170 ± 0.224) kcal mol−1 from the highest affordable CCSD(T)-F12b/V(Q,5)Z-F12 extrapolations, but only (−0.048 ± 0.228) kcal mol−1 from the post-CBS extrapolated values based on CBS(D,T), CBS(D,Q) and CBS(T,Q) energies. From the cost-effectiveness standpoint, the approach is a kind of pseudo one-point extrapolation scheme since its cost is basically that of the highest-rung raw energy where it is based. Variants that imply no additional cost are also discussed, emerging h-pCBS(dt,dq)ab as the most effective. The approach can also be used with PNO-based local correlation methods that gained popularity due to allowing coupled-cluster calculations even for large molecules at reduced computational cost, namely local PNO-CCSD(T) and PNO-CCSD(T)-F12b. To gauge the approach performance, both the hydrogen molecule and the O–C2H5 torsion path of ethyl-methyl-ether, an extra molecule here considered with presupposed existence in astrophysical objects, are also studied. Additionally, the nonbonding interactions in the A24 test set are revisited per se. The results show that the title approach may be useful in high-accuracy quantum chemistry, with further improvements requiring the inclusion of contributions beyond the theory here employed such as the ones due to relativistic and nonadiabatic effects.