A deep neural network for molecular wave functions in quasi-atomic minimal basis representation

Abstract

The emergence of machine learning methods in quantum chemistry provides new methods to revisit an old problem: Can the predictive accuracy of electronic structure calculations be decoupled from their numerical bottlenecks? Previous attempts to answer this question have, among other methods, given rise to semi-empirical quantum chemistry in minimal basis representation. We present an adaptation of the recently proposed SchNet for Orbitals (SchNOrb) deep convolutional neural network model [K. T. Schütt et al., Nat. Commun. 10, 5024 (2019)] for electronic wave functions in an optimized quasi-atomic minimal basis representation. For five organic molecules ranging from 5 to 13 heavy atoms, the model accurately predicts molecular orbital energies and wave functions and provides access to derived properties for chemical bonding analysis. Particularly for larger molecules, the model outperforms the original atomic-orbital-based SchNOrb method in terms of accuracy and scaling. We conclude by discussing the future potential of this approach in quantum chemical workflows.