New accurate reference energies for the G2/97 test set

A recently proposed computational protocol is employed to obtain highly accurate atomization energies for the full G2/97 test set, which consists of 148 diverse molecules. This computational protocol is based on the explicitly correlated coupled-cluster method with iterative single and double excitations as well as perturbative triple excitations, using quadruple-zeta basis sets. Corrections for higher excitations and core/core-valence correlation effects are accounted for in separate calculations. In this manner, suitable reference values are obtained with a mean deviation of -0.75 kJ/mol and a standard deviation of 1.06 kJ/mol with respect to the active thermochemical tables. Often, in the literature, new approximate methods (e.g., in the area of density functional theory) are compared to, or fitted to, experimental heats of formation of the G2/97 test set. We propose to use our atomization energies for this purpose because they are more accurate on average. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4704796]