Dirac-Hartree-Fock calculations large molecules

The last decade has seen a vast amount of method and algorithm development to set up computer programs that can be used for efficient four-component calculations of the electronic structure of molecules. These calculations need incredibly large computer resources even for standard noncorrelated methods like Dirac-Hartree-Fock applied to molecules with only one heavy atom. 

One-center expansion was first applied to whole molecules by Desclaux Pyykko in relativistic and nonrelativistic Hartree-Fock calculations for the series CH4 to PbH4 [81] and then in the Dirac-Fock calculations of CuH, AgH and AuH [82] and other molecules [83]. A large bond length contraction due to the relativistic effects was estimated. However, the accuracy of such calculations is limited in practice because the orbitals of the hydrogen atom are reexpanded on a heavy nucleus in the entire coordinate space. It is notable that the RFCP and one-center expansion approaches were considered earlier as alternatives to each other [84, 85]. 

There have been several successful applications of the Dirac-Hartree-Fock (DHF) equations to the calculation of numerical electronic wave functions for diatomic molecules (Laaksonen and Grant 1984a, 1984b, Sundholm 1988, 1994, Kullie et al. 1999). However, the use of numerical techniques in relativistic molecular calculations encounters the same difficulties as in the nonrelativistic case, and to proceed to general applications beyond simple diatomic and linear molecules it is necessary to resort to an analytic approximation using a basis set expansion of the wave function. The techniques for such calculations may to a large extent be based on the methods developed for nonrelativistic calculations, but it turns out that the transfer of these methods to the relativistic case requires special considerations. These considerations, as well as the development of the finite basis versions of both the Dirac and DHF equations, form the subject of the present chapter. 

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