Predicting complete basis set limit quasiparticle energies from triple-$\zeta$ calculations

Abstract

We present a simple linear model to estimate the basis set incompleteness errors (BSIE) of (vertex-corrected) $GW$ QP energies based on the kinetic energy of the corresponding orbital only. We parametrise the model for $G_0W_0$, quasi-particle self-consistent $GW$ (qs$GW$), and vertex-corrected ($\Sigma^{BSE}@L^{BSE}$) QP energies on a large set of molecules containing 10 different elements for which we calculate complete basis set (CBS) limit extrapolated reference values with correlation-consistent basis sets ranging from triple- to hextuple-$\zeta$ (TZ/6Z). Based on these accurate reference values, we obtain model parameters for Gaussian-type and Slater-type orbital (GTO/STO) basis sets which allow for the extrapolation of QP energies calculated with TZ basis sets to the CBS limit with errors of 20 to 30 meV. Analysing extrapolation errors, we show the commonly used extrapolation method which assumes an inverse linear dependence of the BSIE on the inverse number of basis functions to be valid, but to produce larger errors, even when a quadruple-$\zeta$ calculation is used in the extrapolation.