Accuracy of Spin-Component-Scaled CC2 Excitation Energies and Potential Energy Surfaces

Benchmark calculations with the Spin-Component-Scaled CC2 variants SCS-CC2 and SOS-CC2 are presented for the electronically excited valence and Rydberg states of small- and medium-sized molecules. Besides the vertical excitation energies and excited state gradients, the potential energy surfaces are also investigated via scans following the forces that act in the Franck-Condon region. The results are compared to the regular CC2 ones, as well as higher level methods CCSD, CCSD(T)(a)*, and CCSDT. The results indicate that a large fraction of the flaws of CC2 revealed by earlier studies disappears if spin-component scaling is employed. This makes these variants attractive alternatives of their unscaled counterparts, offering competitive accuracy of vertical excitation energies of both valence and Rydberg type states and reliable potential energy surfaces, while also maintaining a low-power-scaling computational cost with the system size.