State-of-the-Art Computations of Vertical Ionization Potentials with the Extended Koopmans' Theorem Integrated with the CCSD(T) Method.

The accurate computation of ionization potentials (IPs), within 0.10 eV, is one of the most challenging problems in modern computational chemistry. The extended Koopmans' theorem (EKT) provides a systematic direct approach to compute IPs from any level of theory. In this study, the EKT approach is integrated with the coupled-cluster singles and doubles with perturbative triples [CCSD(T)] method for the first time. For efficiency, the density-fitting (DF) approximation is employed for electron repulsion integrals. Further, the EKT-CCSD(T) method is applied to a set of 23 molecules, denoted as IP23, for comparison with the experimental ionization potentials. For the IP23 set, the EKT-CCSD(T) method, along with the aug-cc-pV5Z basis set, provides a mean absolute error of 0.05 eV. Hence, our results demonstrate that direct computations of IPs at high-accuracy levels can be achieved with the EKT-CCSD(T) method. We believe that the present study may open new avenues in IP computations.