Multireference configuration interaction


In quantum chemistry, the multireference configuration interaction method consists of a configuration interaction expansion of the eigenstates of the electronic molecular Hamiltonian in a set of Slater determinants which correspond to excitations of the ground state electronic configuration but also of some excited states. The Slater determinants from which the excitations are performed are called reference determinants. The higher excited determinants are then chosen either by the program according to some perturbation theoretical ansatz according to a threshold provided by the user or simply by truncating excitations from these references to singly, doubly,... excitations resulting in MRCIS, MRCISD, etc.
For the ground state using more than one reference configuration means a better correlation and so a lower energy. The problem of size inconsistency of truncated CI-methods is not solved by taking more references.
As a result of a MRCI calculation one gets a more balanced correlation of the ground and excited states. For quantitative good energy differences one has to be careful in selecting the references. Taking only the dominant configuration of an excited state into the reference space leads to a correlated now including some configurations with higher excitations the neglect of other dominant configurations of the excited states which are still uncorrelated.
Selecting the references can be done manually, automatically or semiautomatically
This method has been implemented first by Robert Buenker and Sigrid D. Peyerimhoff in the seventies under the name Multi-Reference Single and Double Configuration Interaction .
The MRCI method can also be implemented in semi-empirical methods. An example for this is the OM2/MRCI method developed by Walter Thiel's group.