Computer-predicted ionization energy of carbon within 1 cm$^{-1}$ of the best experiment

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a highly accurate computational prediction of the carbon atom's first ionization energy, surpassing previous methods and paving the way for precise ab-initio calculations for larger elements.

Contribution

The study introduces a computational approach that predicts ionization energy within 0.872 cm$^{-1}$ of experimental data, significantly improving accuracy over prior methods.

Findings

Prediction within 0.872 cm$^{-1}$ of experimental value

Over 6.5 times more accurate than previous best

Potential for sub-cm$^{-1}$ accuracy in larger elements

Abstract

We show that we can predict the first ionization energy of the carbon atom to within 0.872 cm$^{-1}$ of the experimental value. This is an improvement of more than a factor of 6.5 over the preceding best prediction in [Phys. Rev. A 81, 022503], and opens the door to achieving sub-cm$^{-1}$ accuracy for ab-initio predictions in larger elements of the periodic table.