A differential derivation of the Obara-Saika relation for Gaussian electron repulsion integrals

Abstract

The Obara-Saika (OS) method is one of the most widely used techniques in quantum chemistry for evaluating electron repulsion integrals (ERIs) via a set of recurrence relations that build higher angular momentum integrals from lower-order ones. The original derivation by Obara and Saika proceeded by directly relating integrals of differing angular momentum. In this work, we present a compact novel derivation of the OS vertical recurrence relation based solely on differential relations between Gaussian basis functions, expanding on a method suggested in earlier work. By explicitly deriving the required derivative expressions we identify all non-zero primitive terms contributing to the full ERI to develop a hierarchical formulation of the OS recursion relations. This approach has pedagogical value as a rigorous and self-contained derivation. Additionally, the resulting organization exposes independent primitive derivative quantities and may be useful for code generation and parallel implementations on modern GPU architectures.