MCVB method

At the same time molecular orbital (MO) methods were seeing a rapid development, also because of increased computational ability. These, at least on the surface, appear to provide a simpler approach to molecular structure calculations. Nevertheless, Matsen and Browne[32] made a forceful case for the use of MCVB methods, indicating the difficulties... 

In this chapter we describe four rather different three-electron systems the it system ofthe allyl radical, the HeJ ionic molecule, the valence orbitals ofthe BeHmolecule, and the Li atom. In line with the intent of Chapter 4, these treatments are included to introduce the reader to systems that are more complicated than those of Chapters 2 and 3, but simple enough to give detailed illustrations of the methods of Chapter 5. In each case we will examine MCVB results as an example of localized orbital treatments and SCVB results as an example of delocalized treatments. Of course, for Li this distinction is obscured because there is only a single nucleus, but there are, nevertheless, noteworthy points to be made for that system. The reader should refer back to Chapter 4 for a specific discussion of the three-electron spin problem, but we will nevertheless use the general notation developed in Chapter 5 to describe the results because it is more efficient. 

The SCVB method can also be used to study the tt system of the allyl radical. As we have seen already, only one of the two standard tableaux ffinctions is required because of the symmetry of the molecule. We show the results in Table 10.4, where we see that one arrives at 85% of the correlation energy from the largest MCVB calculation in Table 10.2. There is no entry in Table 10.4 for the EGSO weight, since it would be 1, of course. 

---