Aufbau-Suppressed Coupled Cluster Theory for Doubly Excited States

We generalize the Aufbau-suppressed coupled cluster formalism into the realm of doubly excited states by deriving, implementing, and testing a wave function initialization strategy that allows the zeroth-order wave function to match the largest configurations of a doubly excited reference wave function while maintaining the method's overall asymptotic cost parity with ground-state singles and doubles theory. Starting from state-averaged complete active space self-consistent field references, this approach produces highly accurate excitation energies for states dominated by a single doubly excited determinant, as well as states in glyoxal and similar molecules where two different doubly excited determinants have large weights. Typical excitation energy errors in both types of states are on the order of 0.15 eV, with the largest observed error being 0.3 eV. These errors stand in stark contrast to equation of motion methods, where typical errors are 4 to 6 eV at the singles and doubles level and 0.4 to 0.8 eV at the full triples level. It remains an open question how best to generalize the Aufbau suppression approach into an even wider variety of multiconfigurational double excitations, but these early results offer strong motivation for further investigation.