Exact two-component Hamiltonians for relativistic quantum chemistry: Two-electron picture-change corrections made simple

Based on self-consistent field (SCF) atomic mean-field (amf) quantities, we present two simple yet computationally efficient and numerically accurate matrix-algebraic approaches to correct both scalar-relativistic and spin–orbit two-electron picture-change effects (PCEs) arising within an exact two-component (X2C) Hamiltonian framework. Both approaches, dubbed amfX2C and e(xtended)amfX2C, allow us to uniquely tailor PCE corrections to mean-field models, viz. Hartree–Fock or Kohn–Sham DFT, in the latter case also avoiding the need for a point-wise calculation of exchange–correlation PCE corrections. We assess the numerical performance of these PCE correction models on spinor energies of group 18 (closed-shell) and group 16 (open-shell) diatomic molecules, achieving a consistent ≈10−5 Hartree accuracy compared to reference four-component data. Additional tests include SCF calculations of molecular properties such as absolute contact density and contact density shifts in copernicium fluoride compounds (CnF𝑛, n = 2,4,6), as well as equation-of-motion coupled-cluster calculations of x-ray core-ionization energies of 5𝑑- and 6𝑑-containing molecules, where we observe an excellent agreement with reference data. To conclude, we are confident that our (e)amfX2C PCE correction models constitute a fundamental milestone toward a universal and reliable relativistic two-component quantum-chemical approach, maintaining the accuracy of the parent four-component one at a fraction of its computational cost.