Comprehensive Basis-Set Testing of Extended Symmetry-Adapted Perturbation Theory and Assessment of Mixed-Basis Combinations to Reduce Cost
Hybrid or “extended” symmetry-adapted perturbation theory (XSAPT) replaces traditional SAPT’s treatment of dispersion with better performing alternatives while at the same time extending two-body (dimer) SAPT to a many-body treatment of polarization using a self-consistent charge embedding procedure. The present work presents a systematic study of how XSAPT interaction energies and energy components converge with respect to the choice of Gaussian basis set. Errors can be reduced in a systematic way using correlation-consistent basis sets, with aug-cc-pVTZ results converged within <0.1 kcal/mol. Similar (if slightly less systematic) behavior is obtained using Karlsruhe basis sets at much lower cost, and we introduce new versions with limited augmentation that are even more efficient. Pople-style basis sets, which are more efficient still, often afford good results if a large number of polarization functions are included. The dispersion models used in XSAPT afford much faster basis-set convergence as compared to the perturbative description of dispersion in conventional SAPT, meaning that “compromise” basis sets (such as jun-cc-pVDZ) are no longer required and benchmark-quality results can be obtained using triple-ζ basis sets. The use of diffuse functions proves to be essential, especially for the description of hydrogen bonds. As a result, the “δ(Hartree–Fock)” correction for high-order induction can be performed in double-ζ basis sets without significant loss of accuracy, leading to a mixed-basis approach that offers 4× speedup over the existing (cubic scaling) XSAPT approach.