Symmetry-adapted generalised normal-ordered coupled-cluster theory for excited states

Ground and excited electronic states in highly symmetric systems typically possess high degrees of spatial degeneracy as a consequence of point-group symmetry. However, many current quantum-chemical methods struggle to accurately describe the strong correlation effects inherently present in these states, thereby precluding the ability to obtain meaningful insights into the electronic structure of the underlying systems. Consequently, many of their important chemical and spectroscopic properties cannot be reliably computed and predicted. In this article, a new theoretical framework is described that unifies the symbolic treatment of non-Abelian symmetry in QSym² and the recently developed state-specific multi-reference coupled cluster theory termed Generalised Normal-Ordered Coupled Cluster (GNOCC) to describe such difficult ground and excited states in a balanced and targeted manner. This is ensured by the ability of QSym² to exploit symmetry orbits to restore any broken spatial symmetries and generate symmetry-adapted multi-determinantal wavefunctions, as well as the ability of GNOCC to dynamically correlate arbitrary spin eigenfunctions in a size-extensive and spin-free manner. To illustrate the capabilities of this framework, several ground and excited states in three model systems are examined in detail: (i) octahedral (H₆)²⁺, (ii) octahedral H₆, and (iii) tetrahedral Li₄. The results demonstrate that the proposed method can target both degenerate and non-degenerate states, while delivering improved numerical performance relative to conventional single-reference coupled-cluster approaches.