Approximating electronically excited states with equation-of-motion linear coupled-cluster theory

Abstract: A new perturbative approach to canonical equation-of-motion coupled-cluster theory is presented using coupled-cluster perturbation theory. A second-order M{\o}ller-Plesset partitioning of the Hamiltonian is used to obtain the well known equation-of-motion many-body perturbation theory (EOM-MBPT(2)) equations and two new equation-of-motion methods based on the linear coupled-cluster doubles (EOM-LCCD) and linear coupled-cluster singles and doubles (EOM-LCCSD) wavefunctions. This is achieved by performing a short-circuiting procedure on the MBPT(2) similarity transformed Hamiltonian. These new methods are benchmarked against very accurate theoretical and experimental spectra from 25 small organic molecules. It is found that the proposed methods have excellent agreement with canonical EOM-CCSD state for state orderings and relative excited state energies as well as acceptable quantitative agreement for absolute excitation energies compared with the best estimate theory and experimental spectra.