Efficient truncation strategies for multi-reference configuration interaction molecular energies and properties

Modified virtual orbitals are proposed for multi-reference configuration interaction (MRCI) treatments and a modified Fock operator is defined for the orbital transformation. The main property of the modified orbitals is to improve the convergence properties of the configuration interaction (CI) expansion, which can be exploited to truncate, partially, the expansion in the external space. Simple tests are presented to show that the orbital transformation may be useful to perform FullCI type of treatments for subsets of orbitals and electrons, and to improve the MRCI second-order corrections and energies. Compared to other well-established techniques for accurate MRCI treatments, it is believed that this method offers advantages for electronic structures with many active orbitals and electrons using large orbital basis sets.