The calculation of spin-restricted single-determinant wavefunctions

Abstract

A procedure is described for the calculation of spin-restricted single-determinant molecular orbital wavefunctions for systems such as free radical ground states and lowest triplet states. It is a further development of ‘partitioning techniques’, which divide the available one-electron space (for a given basis) into three mutually orthogonal subspaces for doubly-occupied, singly-occupied and empty orbitals respectively. Necessary and sufficient conditions are derived for the calculated total energy to be stationary with respect to changes in these subspaces. These lead to an iterative procedure for the determination of self-consistent molecular orbitals. Some preliminary applications to hydrocarbon radicals are described and compared with corresponding spin-unrestricted results.