Estimates of the Ab Initio Limit for π−π Interactions: The Benzene Dimer

TLDR: In this article, the binding energies of the benzene dimer were investigated at the second-order Moller−Plesset perturbation theory (MP2) level, and it was shown that more modest basis sets such as aug-cc-pVDZ are sufficient for geometry optimizations of intermolecular parameters.

Abstract: State-of-the-art electronic structure methods have been applied to the simplest prototype of aromatic π−π interactions, the benzene dimer. By comparison to results with a large aug-cc-pVTZ basis set, we demonstrate that more modest basis sets such as aug-cc-pVDZ are sufficient for geometry optimizations of intermolecular parameters at the second-order Moller−Plesset perturbation theory (MP2) level. However, basis sets even larger than aug-cc-pVTZ are important for accurate binding energies. The complete basis set MP2 binding energies, estimated by explicitly correlated MP2−R12/A techniques, are significantly larger in magnitude than previous estimates. When corrected for higher-order correlation effects via coupled cluster with singles, doubles, and perturbative triples [CCSD(T)], the binding energies De (D0) for the sandwich, T-shaped, and parallel-displaced configurations are found to be 1.8 (2.0), 2.7 (2.4), and 2.8 (2.7) kcal mol-1, respectively.