Configuration interaction frozen core approximation

It is quite common in correlated methods (including many-body perturbation theory, coupled-cluster, etc., as well as configuration interaction) to invoke the frozen core approximation, whereby the lowest-lying molecular orbitals, occupied by the inner-shell electrons, are constrained to remain doubly-occupied in all configurations. The frozen core for atoms lithium to neon typically consists of the Is atomic orbital, while that for atoms sodium to argon consists of the atomic orbitals Is, 2s, 2px, 2py and 2pz. The frozen molecular orbitals are those made primarily from these inner-shell atomic orbitals. 

In electron correlation treatments, it is a common procedure to divide the orbital space into various subspaces orbitals with large binding energy (core), occupied orbitals with low-binding energy (valence), and unoccupied orbitals (virtual). One of the reasons for this subdivision is the possibility to freeze the core (i.e., to restrict excitations to the valence and virtual spaces). Consequently, all determinants in a configuration interaction (Cl) expansion share a set of frozen-core orbitals. For this approximation to be valid, one has to assume that excitation energies are not affected by correlation contributions of the inner shells. It is then sufficient to describe the interaction between core and valence electrons by some kind of mean-field expression. 

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