On the accuracy of DFT-SAPT, MP2, SCS-MP2, MP2C, and DFT+Disp methods for the interaction energies of endohedral complexes of the C(60) fullerene with a rare gas atom.

Selected points on the potential energy surface for the complexes Rg@C(60) (Rg = He, Ne, Ar, Kr) are calculated with various theoretical methods, like symmetry-adapted perturbation theory with monomers described by density functional theory (DFT-SAPT), supermolecular Møller-Plesset theory truncated on the second order (MP2), spin-component-scaled MP2 (SCS-MP2), supermolecular density functional theory with empirical dispersion correction (DFT+Disp), and the recently developed MP2C method that improves the MP2 method for long-range electron correlation effects. A stabilization of the endohedral complex is predicted by all methods, but the depth of the potential energy well is overestimated by the DFT+Disp and MP2 approaches. On the other hand, the MP2C model agrees well with DFT-SAPT, which serves as the reference. The performance of SCS-MP2 is mixed: it produces too low interaction energies for the two heavier guests, while its accuracy for He@C(60) and Ne@C(60) is similar to that of MP2C. Fitting formulas for the main interaction energy components, i.e. the dispersion and first-order repulsion energies are proposed, which are applicable for both endo- and exohedral cases. For all examined methods density fitting is used to evaluate two-electron repulsion integrals, which is indispensable to allow studies of noncovalent complexes of this size. It has been found that density-fitting auxiliary basis sets cannot be used in a black-box fashion for the calculation of the first-order SAPT electrostatic energy, and that the quality of these basis sets should be always carefully examined in order to avoid an unphysical long-range behavior.