Understanding failures in electronic structure methods arising from the geometric phase effect

Abstract: We show that intermediate normalization of the electronic wave function, where a constant component is enforced, will lead to an asymptotic discontinuity at one point along any path that encloses a ground state conical intersection. For some electronic structure methods, this gives rise to severe global artifacts in the ground and excited state potential energy surfaces. We investigate how this affects two electronic structure methods: coupled cluster theory and M{\o}ller-Plesset perturbation theory. The analysis suggests that intermediate normalization is problematic not only in near-degenerate regions, such as in the vicinity of conical intersections. In particular, since problems will occur for any path that encloses a ground state intersection, the affected methods can unexpectedly break down in regions of internal coordinate space that are normally considered within their range of validity.