Complete active‐space configuration interaction with optimized orbitals: Application to Li₂

We performed CAS–CI calculations on Li₂ using a set of molecular orbitals (MO) optimized with a procedure that, in the case of highly symmetric molecules, permits extraction of a small set of MO out of a large set of atomic orbitals (AO). The dimension of the CAS–CI space was of about 12 million symmetry‐adapted determinants. We determined some spectroscopic constants of Li₂ with three different atomic basis sets of increasing quality. The values obtained with the largest atomic basis set are very close to the experimental results. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.