arXiv subjects

Henrik Koch

Publications and source records attributed to Henrik Koch.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Resolving the ground state intersection problem in coupled cluster theory

A physically correct description of ground state conical intersections is essential for simulating non-adiabatic dynamics of radiationless decay to the electronic ground state. Coupled cluster theory offers a particularly balanced treatment of static and dynamic correlation in excited states. However, coupled cluster methods and other single-reference approaches fail to describe ground state intersection regions, and several workarounds have been proposed to address this shortcoming. Here we present convex similarity constrained coupled cluster theory (CVX-SCC), a framework that resolves the ground state intersection problem by construction. We have applied this theory to two different coupled cluster methods, and tested the resulting models on ethylene, uracil, PSB3, and HeH$_2$, showing that both variants produce physically correct ground state conical intersections. With future development of nuclear gradients and non-adiabatic coupling vectors, this approach will provide single-reference electronic structures suitable for non-adiabatic dynamics simulations all the way to the ground state.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2026

Spectroscopic photorelaxation signatures in pyrazine from nonadiabatic dynamics simulations with coupled cluster theory

Despite extensive theoretical and experimental efforts, the mechanisms underlying the ultrafast relaxation of pyrazine after photoexcitation remain challenging to disentangle. Recently, theoretical investigations have been converging towards a three-state mechanism, with an ultrafast decay of the bright ${}^{1}B_{2u}$ state followed by beats in the populations of the low-lying ${}^{1}B_{3u}$ and ${}^{1}A_u$ states. However, a clear agreement between the experimental results and the corresponding theoretical predictions remains elusive. Here, we present a high-level simulation of the ultrafast excited states dynamics of pyrazine using coupled cluster theory with single and double excitations and ab initio multiple spawning, together with predictions of the time-resolved photoelectron spectrum and X-ray absorption spectra at the nitrogen and carbon edges. This is made possible by using a newly developed multistate implementation of similarity constrained coupled cluster theory. We find quantitative agreement with the experimental signature of the ${}^{1}B_{2u}$ decay in the photoelectron spectrum, and qualitative agreement with the available experimental X-ray absorption spectra. Moreover, we detail spectroscopic signatures that should be verifiable in experiments with sufficient resolution in the time and frequency domains. Compared to previous theoretical studies, we provide further detailed insight into the interplay of the states involved in the photorelaxation.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2026

Restoring the Conical Intersection Topology using Convex Density Functional Theory

Conical intersections are central to the description of photophysics and photochemistry. Nevertheless, in non-adiabatic molecular dynamics simulations, they are fundamentally challenging for single-reference electronic structure methods. Density functional theory (DFT) and its time-dependent extension (TDDFT) represent the most widely used theoretical approaches in physics, chemistry, and biology. However, the treatment of ground and excited states as separate problems leads to breakdowns in the topological structure of potential energy surfaces near conical intersections. In this work, we solve this long-standing issue by presenting Convex DFT, a framework that, by explicitly enforcing convexity of the variational problem within an appropriately defined subspace, guarantees a unique and continuous electronic solution across regions of degeneracies. We demonstrate that Convex DFT yields smooth and physically meaningful intersection seams by comparison with multireference wave function methods. In this way, we establish the method as a robust and computationally efficient DFT approach for treating electronically degenerate regions. These developments represent a critical step toward reliable non-adiabatic simulations beyond the limitations of conventional TDDFT.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2026

Coupled cluster theory for positron binding in anions and polyatomic molecules

We present the positron coupled cluster singles and doubles (POS-CCSD) method to calculate positron binding energies in molecules. This framework treats electrons and positrons on an equal footing and includes up to simultaneous double-electron-single-positron excitations. We benchmark the approach by computing binding energies for atomic anions and several polar and non-polar polyatomic systems, comparing the results with independent theoretical studies and, where available, experimental data. The fully converged results for H$^{-}$ are in excellent agreement with quantum Monte Carlo and multi-reference configuration interaction results. Quantitative agreement with experiments is not reached in the present study due to the slow convergence of the binding energy with respect to the size of the orbital bases for the electrons and the positron. However, the POS-CCSD results underscore the critical role of electron correlation in the description of electron-positron systems required for a balanced description of these complex systems. In addition, we examine nuclear relaxation effects following positron attachment in LiH.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2026

Multilevel DFT Response Theory

We present a general computational protocol for the evaluation of extensive molecular response properties in complex environments within a polarizable quantum embedding framework. The approach extends multilevel density functional theory (MLDFT) to response theory by formulating the coupled-perturbed Kohn-Sham (CPKS) equations for the MLDFT Hamiltonian. The method is further coupled to an additional polarizable molecular mechanics layer based on the fluctuating-charge (FQ) force field, which allows an accurate yet computationally efficient description of long-range interactions. We apply this new protocol to compute static and frequency-dependent linear polarizabilities and first hyperpolarizabilities of para-nitroaniline (PNA) in 1,4-dioxane and 3-hydroxybenzoic acid (HBA) in aqueous solution. The framework enables physicochemical insight into solute-solvent interactions by disentangling the competing roles of electrostatics, mutual polarization, and quantum confinement (Pauli repulsion). The results match available experiments, demonstrating the reliability and robustness of the proposed approach and providing a viable route for response properties within quantum embedding methods.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2026

Polaritonic Bloch's Theorem beyond the Long-Wavelength Approximation

Cavity quantum electrodynamics provides a powerful tool to manipulate material properties, yet it remains a matter of debate whether and how quantized fields affect the periodicity of crystals. Here, we extend Bloch's theorem to crystals under strong light-matter coupling, revealing that polariton quasiparticles preserve lattice periodicity. We introduce a general framework to incorporate multimode cavity fields in a simple and tractable way, showing that additional modes contribute small energy corrections noticeable only at low frequencies. Within the single-photon approximation, these contributions reduce to a spatially uniform effective field in the crystal plane, providing a formal justification for the single-mode and long-wavelength approximations commonly used in molecular polaritonics. Together, these results establish a rigorous framework for describing polaritonic states in crystalline solids.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2025

eT 2.0: An efficient open-source molecular electronic structure program

The eT program is an open-source electronic structure program with emphasis on performance and modularity. As its name suggests, the program features extensive coupled cluster capabilities, performing well compared to other electronic structure programs, and, in some cases, outperforming commercial alternatives. However, eT is more than a coupled cluster program; other models based on wave function theory (such as full and reduced space configuration interaction and a variety of self-consistent field models) and density functional theory are supported. The second major release of the program, eT 2.0, has specialized functionality for strong light-matter coupling conditions. In addition, it includes a wide range of optimizations and algorithmic improvements, as well as new capabilities for exploring potential energy surfaces and for modeling experiments in the UV and X-ray regimes. Molecular gradients are now available at the coupled cluster level, and high-accuracy spectroscopic simulations are available at reduced computational cost within the multilevel coupled cluster and multiscale frameworks. We present the modifications to the program since its first major release, eT 1.0, highlighting some notable new features and demonstrating the performance of the new version relative to the first release and to other established electronic structure programs.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2025

Unveiling chiral electron-photon correlation effects in circularly polarized optical devices

Strong coupling with circularly polarized vacuum fluctuations offers a viable route to manipulate molecular chirality. While experiments are advancing toward the realization of chiral cavities, a mean-field theoretical framework for describing electron-photon interaction in this platform has been missing. Here, we present a mean-field theory that can be systematically improved to capture the chiral correlation effects responsible for the enantioselective power of chiral light. We use strong coupling Møller-Plesset perturbation theory for accessing the excitation manifold of electrons and chiral virtual photons. We apply the developed methods to selected chiral systems and show that the mean-field theory captures cavity frequency dispersion, but fails to describe the chiral discrimination arising from coupled electron-photon excitations.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2025

Convex Hartree-Fock theory: A simple framework for ground state conical intersections

Accurate modeling of conical intersections is crucial in nonadiabatic molecular dynamics, as these features govern processes such as radiationless transitions and photochemical reactions. Conventional electronic structure methods, including Hartree-Fock, density functional theory, and their time-dependent extensions, struggle in this regime. Due to their single reference nature and separate treatment of ground and excited states, they fail to capture ground state intersections. Multiconfigurational approaches overcome these limitations, but at a prohibitive computational cost. In this work, we propose a modified Hartree-Fock framework, referred to as Convex Hartree-Fock, that optimizes the reference within a tailored subspace by removing projections along selected Hessian eigenvectors. The ground and excited states are then obtained through subsequent Hamiltonian diagonalization. We validate the approach across several test cases and benchmark its performance against time-dependent Hartree-Fock within the Tamm-Dancoff approximation.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2025

SpinAdaptedSecondQuantization.jl 1.0 -- A Simple and Pedagogical Approach to Symbolic Quantum Chemistry

The development of new electronic structure methods is a very time consuming and error prone process when done by hand. SpinAdaptedSecondQuantization is an open-source Julia package we have developed for working with automated electronic structure theory development. The code focuses on being user-friendly and extensible, allowing for easy use of both user- and pre-defined fermionic and/or bosonic operators, tensors, and orbital spaces. This allows the code to be used to efficiently investigate and prototype new electronic structure methods for many different types of systems. This includes both exotic systems with wave functions consisting of different kinds of particles at once, as well as new parametrizations for traditional many-electron systems. The code is spin-adapted, working directly with spin-adapted fermionic operators, and can easily be used to derive common electronic structure theory equations and expressions, such as the coupled cluster energy, ground and excited state equations, one- and two-electron density matrices, etc. Additionally, the code can translate expressions into code, accelerating the process of going from ideas to implemented methods.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2025

Understanding failures in electronic structure methods arising from the geometric phase effect

The geometric phase effect arises from the dependence on the nuclear coordinates in the electronic Hamiltonian, leading to sign changes of the electronic wave functions upon traversal of certain paths in nuclear configuration space. The geometric phase effect can have important consequences for the electronic structure problem, but this fact has largely gone unnoticed. We show how the geometric phase effect can significantly impact the accuracy of approximate electronic structure methods. In particular, we prove that for paths that enclose a conical intersection, any component of the wave function (such as an approximation to it) must vanish exactly, unless the associated conical intersections of the component and the wave function coincide. This has implications for methods that employ intermediate normalization, where the contribution along a reference wave function is fixed. We demonstrate numerically that the failure to account for the phase effect leads to asymptotic discontinuities in the wave function parameters. This results in breakdowns in coupled cluster methods or perturbation theories converging to excited states rather than the ground state. The global nature of the geometric phase effect means that these failures can span extended regions of nuclear configuration space, including regions far away from any conical intersection.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2025

A comprehensive theory for relativistic polaritonic chemistry: a four components ab initio treatment of molecular systems coupled to quantum fields

We present a new ab initio approach to study molecules containing heavy atoms strongly interacting with quantum fields in optical devices. The theory has been derived from the relativistic quantum electrodynamics (QED) introducing the approximations needed to provide a formalism suitable for relativistic quantum chemistry. This framework represents the ideal starting point to extend the main quantum chemistry methods to relativistic polaritonic. The Polaritonic Dirac Hartree Fock (Pol-DHF) approach is the first method we propose based on this theory. Pol-DHF allows for the simulation of field induced effects on the ground and excited state properties of heavy transition metals molecular complexes. The method is able to include not only the effects of the photons, but can in principle be extended also to include explicit interactions with positrons. Application of Pol-DHF to three metal hydrides shows that the magnitude of both polaritonic and relativistic effects can be comparable when relativistic effects are getting more important. Due to an accurate description of spin-orbit coupling, the method is able to reproduce polaritonic effects happening at the crossing between singlet and triplet potential energy surfaces.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2025

A Complete Active Space Self-Consistent Field approach for molecules in QED environments

Multireference systems are usually challenging to investigate using ab initio methods as they require an accurate description of static electron correlation. The urgency of developing similar approaches is even more pressing when molecules strongly interact with light in quantum-electrodynamics (QED) environments. In fact, in this context, multireference effects might be induced or reduced by the presence of the field. In this work, we extend the Complete Active Space Self-Consistent Field (CASSCF) approach to polaritonic systems. The method is tested on benchmark multireference problems and applied to investigate field-induced effects on the electronic structure of well-known multiconfigurational processes. Strengths and limitations of the method have been thoroughly analyzed.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2025

Cavity Field-Driven Symmetry Breaking and Modulation of Vibrational Properties: Insights from the Analytical QED-HF Hessian

In this work, we present the analytical derivation and implementation of the quantum electrodynamics Hartree-Fock Hessian. We investigate how electronic strong coupling influences molecular vibrational properties, applying this framework to formaldehyde, p-nitroaniline, and adamantane. Our analysis reveals cavity-induced changes in vibrational frequencies and intensities. Additionally, we show how the quantum electromagnetic field breaks molecular symmetry, activating previously forbidden infrared transitions. Our findings highlight the potential of strong coupling as a method for controlling and modulating molecular vibrational properties.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2025

Similarity Constrained CC2 for Efficient Coupled Cluster Nonadiabatic Dynamics

Despite their high accuracy, standard coupled cluster models cannot be used for nonadiabatic molecular dynamics simulations because they yield unphysical complex excitation energies at conical intersections between same-symmetry excited states. On the other hand, similarity constrained coupled cluster theory has enabled the application of coupled cluster theory in such dynamics simulations. Here, we present a similarity constrained perturbative doubles (SCC2) model with same-symmetry excited-state conical intersections that exhibit correct topography, topology, and real excitation energies. This is achieved while retaining the favorable computational scaling of the standard CC2 model. We illustrate the model for conical intersections in hypofluorous acid and thymine, and compare its performance with other methods. The results demonstrate that conical intersections between excited states can be described correctly and efficiently at the SCC2 level. We therefore expect that the SCC2 model will enable coupled cluster nonadiabatic dynamics simulations for large molecular systems.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2025

Excitation Energies from the Entanglement Coupled Cluster Model for Doublets

We present excitation energies for molecular doublets from a spin-adapted formulation of coupled cluster singles and doubles theory. The entanglement coupled cluster approach represents an unconventional take on the notorious problem of spin adaptation for open-shell species. In this approach, the high-spin open-shell molecular system is coupled to non-interacting bath orbitals to form a total closed-shell system. In entanglement coupled cluster theory, many of the attractive features of the spin-adapted closed-shell coupled cluster is retained: an unambiguous definition of the cluster operator and a terminating Baker-Campbell-Hausdorff expansion. The result is a spin-adapted coupled cluster theory for open-shell species. The model produces excitation energies of a quality comparable to the closed-shell counterpart. Additionally, some ionized states that cannot be modeled accurately with the alternative equation-of-motion approach for ionized states, can be described with the entanglement coupled cluster singles and doubles model.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2025

Strong coupling Møller-Plesset perturbation theory

Perturbative approaches are methods to efficiently tackle many-body problems, offering both intuitive insights and analysis of correlation effects. However, their application to systems where light and matter are strongly coupled is non-trivial. Specifically, the definition of suitable orbitals for the zeroth-order Hamiltonian represents a significant theoretical challenge. While reviewing previously investigated orbital choices, this work presents an alternative polaritonic orbital basis suitable for the strong coupling regime. We develop a quantum electrodynamical (QED) Møller-Plesset perturbation theory using orbitals obtained from the strong coupling QED Hartree-Fock. We assess the strengths and limitations of the different approaches and emphasize the essential role of using a consistent molecular orbital framework to achieve an accurate description of cavity-induced electron-photon correlation effects.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2025

Strong coupling quantum electrodynamics Hartree-Fock response theory

The development of reliable ab initio methods for light-matter strong coupling is necessary for a deeper understanding of molecular polaritons. The recently developed strong coupling quantum electrodynamics Hartree-Fock model (SC-QED-HF) provides cavity-consistent molecular orbitals, overcoming several difficulties related to the simpler QED-HF wave function. In this paper, we further develop this method by implementing the response theory for SC-QED-HF. We compare the derived linear response equations with the time-dependent QED-HF theory and discuss the validity of equivalence relations connecting matter and electromagnetic observables. Our results show that electron-photon correlation induces an excitation redshift compared to the time-dependent QED-HF energies, and we discuss the effect of the dipole self-energy on the ground and excited state properties with different basis sets.

physics.chem-ph↗