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Orca - Quantum chemistry package

ORCA is a general-purpose quantum chemistry software package initiated by Frank Neese. It provides an array of quantum chemistry approaches, i.e. Hartree-Fock, (T)DFT, Møller–Plesset (MP) perturbation theory, coupled-cluster, multi-reference, semi-empirical, and multiscale methods.

Loading ORCA in your enviroment

Multiple versions of ORCA are installed at the CHPC. To have access to its latest version, you must load the appropriate modules:

module load openmpi/4.1.6-gpu
module load orca

To verify that ORCA is loaded correctly, you can use the which command:

[u0253283@notchpeak1:~]$ which orca
/uufs/chpc.utah.edu/sys/installdir/r8/orca/6.0.1/orca

Running ORCA

ORCA is a parallel program that relies on MPI. However, you do not need to use mpirun or
specify the number of tasks within the command line. Simply use: 

 orca inputfile >& outputfile

Examples of ORCA scripts

Examples of ORCA input files and their corresponding Slurm submission scripts can be found here.

ORCA documentation

  • Within the installation:
    After loading the ORCA module, navigate to $ORCA_DOC. The manual is titled manual.pdf
  • Online
Last Updated: 1/8/26