Ab initio calculations of the spectrum of lawrencium

TL;DR

This paper provides ab initio theoretical predictions of the spectral lines of lawrencium to assist experimental spectroscopy, using advanced computational methods benchmarked against known data for lutetium.

Contribution

The study applies the CI+MBPT method to predict lawrencium's atomic spectra, offering the first systematic theoretical data to guide experimental searches.

Findings

Predicted energy levels closely match lutetium's experimental data.

Identified multiple spectral transitions useful for experiments.

Results are numerically converged and expected to be accurate for lawrencium.

Abstract

Planned optical spectroscopy experiments in lawrencium (Lr, Z = 103) require accurate theoretical predictions of the location of spectral lines in order to narrow the experimental search window. We present ab initio calculations of the atomic energy levels, transition amplitudes and g-factors for lawrencium, as well as its lighter homologue lutetium (Lu, Z = 71). We use the configuration interaction with many-body perturbation-theory (CI+MBPT) method to calculate energy levels and transition properties, and benchmark the accuracy of our predicted energies using relativistic coupled-cluster codes. Our results are numerically converged and in close agreement with experimentally measured energy levels for Lu, and we expect a similar accuracy for Lr. These systematic calculations have identified multiple transitions of experimental utility and will serve to guide future experimental studies of Lr.