Molecular Conformations and Relative Stabilities Can Be as Demanding of the Electronic Structure Method as Intermolecular Calculations

We have performed a variety of high-level electronic structure calculations on two moderately sized organic molecules and found considerable sensitivity of the intramolecular potential energy surface to the method employed. The gas-phase structure of tyrosine-glycine varies qualitatively between B3LYP and MP2 optimizations, producing different close contacts between the tyrosine ring and the glycine moiety. The relative energies of the 2-(acetylamino)benzamide conformations found in its two polymorphs can vary by over 20 kJ mol-1 between MP2 and B3LYP calculations, using the same basis set. It is shown by a novel analysis that the intramolecular equivalent of basis set superposition error competes with the errors in the intramolecular dispersion in causing this sensitivity.