Computing excited states of molecules using normalizing flows

Abstract

We present a new nonlinear variational framework for simultaneously computing ground and excited states of quantum systems. Our approach is based on approximating wavefunctions in the linear span of basis functions that are augmented and optimized \emph{via} composition with normalizing flows. The accuracy and efficiency of our approach are demonstrated in the calculations of a large number of vibrational states of the triatomic H$_2$S molecule as well as ground and several excited electronic states of prototypical one-electron systems including the hydrogen atom, the molecular hydrogen ion, and a carbon atom in a single-active-electron approximation. The results demonstrate significant improvements in the accuracy of energy predictions and accelerated basis-set convergence even when using normalizing flows with a small number of parameters. The present approach can be also seen as the optimization of a set of intrinsic coordinates that best capture the underlying physics within the given basis set