Theoretical study of electronic structure of erbium and fermium

TL;DR

This paper employs a configuration method to study the electronic structure of erbium and fermium, providing data on excitation energies, transition rates, isotope shifts, hyperfine structures, ionization potentials, and polarizabilities, with implications for nuclear physics.

Contribution

It introduces a new application of the configuration method to heavy atoms, offering detailed electronic structure calculations for erbium and fermium, and suggests using isotope shifts to explore nuclear deformation.

Findings

Calculated excitation energies and transition rates for erbium and fermium.

Proposed isotope shift measurements to study nuclear deformation.

Provided benchmark data for electronic properties of heavy elements.

Abstract

We use a recently developed version of the configuration method for open shells to study electronic structure of erbium and fermium atoms. We calculate excitation energies of odd states connected to the even ground state by electric dipole transitions, the corresponding transition rates, isotope shift, hyperfine structure, ionization potentials and static scalar polarizabilities. We argue that measuring isotope shift for several transitions can be used to study nuclear deformation in even-even nuclei. This is important for testing nuclear theory and for searching for the hypothetical island of stability. Since erbium and fermium have similar electronic structures, calculations for erbium serve as a guide to the accuracy of the calculations.