Two-component, ab initio potential energy surface for CO-HO, extension to the hydrate clathrate, CO@(HO), and VSCF/VCI vibrational analyses of both.

We report an ab initio, full-dimensional, potential energy surface (PES) for CO-HO, in which two-body interaction energies are fit using a basis of permutationally invariant polynomials and combined with accurate potentials for the non-interacting monomers. This approach which we have termed "plug and play" is extended here to improve the precision of the 2-body fit in the long range. This is done by combining two separate fits. One is a fit to 47 593 2-body energies in the region of strong interaction and approaching the long range, and the second one is a fit to 6244 2-body energies in the long range. The two fits have a region of overlap which permits a smooth switch from one to the other. All energies are obtained at the CCSD(T)-F12b/aug-cc-pVTZ level of theory. Properties of the full PES, i.e., stationary points, harmonic frequencies of the global minimum, etc., are shown to be in excellent agreement with direct CCSD(T)-F12b/aug-cc-pVTZ results. Diffusion Monte Carlo calculations of the dimer zero-point energy (ZPE) are performed, and a dissociation energy, D, of 787 cm is obtained using that ZPE, D, and the rigorous ZPEs of the monomers. Using a benchmark D, D is 758 cm. Vibrational self-consistent field (VSCF)/virtual state configuration interaction (VCI) MULTIMODE calculations of intramolecular fundamentals are reported and are in good agreement with available experimental results. Finally, the full dimer PES is combined with an existing ab initio water potential to develop a potential for the CO hydrate clathrate CO(HO)(5 water cage). A full normal-mode analysis of this hydrate clathrate is reported as are local-monomer VSCF/VCI calculations of the fundamentals of CO.