Density Functional Theory and the Basis Set Truncation Problem with Correlation Consistent Basis Sets: Elephant in the Room or Mouse in the Closet?

Two recent papers in this journal called into question the suitability of the correlation consistent basis sets for density functional theory (DFT) calculations, because the sets were designed for correlated methods such as configuration interaction, perturbation theory, and coupled cluster theory. These papers focused on the ability of the correlation consistent and other basis sets to reproduce total energies, atomization energies, and dipole moments obtained from "quasi-exact" multiwavelet results. Undesirably large errors were observed for the correlation consistent basis sets. One of the papers argued that basis sets specifically optimized for DFT methods were "essential" for obtaining high accuracy. In this work we re-examined the performance of the correlation consistent basis sets by resolving problems with the previous calculations and by making more appropriate basis set choices for the alkali and alkaline-earth metals and second-row elements. When this is done, the statistical errors with respect to the benchmark values and with respect to DFT optimized basis sets are greatly reduced, especially in light of the relatively large intrinsic error of the underlying DFT method. When judged with respect to high-quality Feller-Peterson-Dixon coupled cluster theory atomization energies, the PBE0 DFT method used in the previous studies exhibits a mean absolute deviation more than a factor of 50 larger than the quintuple zeta basis set truncation error.