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Updated: Nov 22, 2025

Computation of Atmospheric Concentrations of Molecular Clusters from ab initio Thermochemistry
Published on: April 8, 2020
Transition-potential coupled cluster
Megan Simons1, Devin A Matthews1
1Department of Chemistry, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas 75275, USA.
Computational core-hole spectroscopy methods like EOM-CCSD struggle with orbital relaxation errors. A new transition-potential coupled cluster (TP-CC) approach, specifically TP-CCSD(12), effectively resolves this, enabling accurate core-hole spectra calculations.
Area of Science:
- Computational chemistry
- Quantum chemistry
- Spectroscopy
Background:
- Orbital relaxation is a significant challenge in computational core-hole spectroscopies.
- Linear response methods, such as equation-of-motion coupled cluster with singles and doubles (EOM-CCSD), are particularly affected.
- Existing approaches often rely on increased electron correlation, which can be computationally expensive.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop a novel computational method that explicitly addresses orbital relaxation in core-hole spectroscopies.
- To introduce a family of transition-potential coupled cluster (TP-CC) methods.
- To assess the accuracy and efficiency of TP-CC methods for calculating core-hole spectra.
Main Methods:
- Proposed an explicit treatment of orbital relaxation using "transition potential" reference orbitals.
- Developed the transition-potential coupled cluster (TP-CC) methodology.
- Introduced and tested the TP-CCSD(12) method, a specific implementation within the TP-CC family.
Main Results:
- The TP-CC methods, particularly TP-CCSD(12), effectively eliminate orbital relaxation errors in core-hole spectra.
- TP-CCSD(12) achieves accuracy comparable to EOM-CCSD for valence electronic structure calculations.
- Accurate computation of x-ray absorption spectra for molecules with first-row atoms is possible at a cost similar to EOM-CCSD.
Conclusions:
- The transition-potential coupled cluster (TP-CC) approach offers a robust solution to the orbital relaxation problem in core-hole spectroscopy.
- TP-CCSD(12) provides a computationally efficient and accurate method for calculating core-hole spectra.
- This work paves the way for more reliable and accessible computational studies of core-hole spectroscopies.
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