Exploring the MRCI method for calculating interaction energies: application to the HeNe potential curve

A multi-reference configuration interaction (MRCI) method is described, which is devised for the calculation of interaction energies of van der Waals complexes and applied to calculating the HeNe potential energy curve. The MRCI calculations make use of a generalized Pople-correction in order to account for the lack of size consistency. The orbital space is partitioned into three subspaces: the first active space (AS1), which contains the strongly occupied orbitals; the second active space (AS2), which contains the main intra-correlating orbitals; and the external space (ES). It is shown that, to keep the error below ± 0.2 K in the excitation scheme and the active orbital space it is sufficient to include only σ-orbitals in AS2 and to use an excitation scheme (labelled Qq-MRCI) that encompasses only up to quadruply excited configurations. The final active orbital space (AS2) turned out to be 2s(He), 2pσ(He), 3s(Ne), 3σ(Ne) and 3dσ(Ne). Other MRCI variants, in which most or all quadruply excited configurat...