Amplitude determinant coupled cluster with pairwise doubles

Abstract: Recently developed pair coupled cluster doubles (pCCD) theory successfully reproduces doubly occupied configuration interaction (DOCI) with mean field cost. However, the projective nature of pCCD makes the method non-variational and thus hard to improve systematically. As a variational alternative, we explore the idea of coupled-cluster-like expansions based on amplitude determinants and develop a specific theory similar to pCCD based on determinants of pairwise doubles. The new ansatz admits a variational treatment through Monte Carlo methods while remaining size-consistent and, crucially, polynomial cost. In the dissociations of LiH, HF, H2O and N2, the method performs very similarly to pCCD and DOCI, suggesting that coupled-cluster-like ansatzes and variational evaluation may not be mutually exclusive.