There is this question: What exactly is meant by 'multi-configurational' and 'multireference'?
But I still don't understand what the multiple "references" are. I understand that you can for example use a HF Ansatz and exited states for multi-configurational methods. And that multi reference methods use more than one configuration to build exited states. But what are these configurations? There is only one HF Slater determinant, how do the other references look like?
I would appreciate if you could answer the questions with some additional formulas instead of just describing it by words :)