Electronic structure of Rf^+ (Z = 104) from ab initio calculations

TL;DR

This paper presents ab initio calculations of the electronic structure of the superheavy Rf^+ ion, providing energy levels and spectroscopic data crucial for future experimental studies.

Contribution

It introduces a relativistic multireference configuration interaction approach to accurately predict energy levels of Rf^+ considering relativistic effects and electron correlation.

Findings

Predicted energy spectrum of Rf^+ ion including ground and excited states.

Identification of metastable states suitable for laser spectroscopy.

Assessment of uncertainties in energy level predictions.

Abstract

We report calculation of the energy spectrum and the spectroscopic properties of the superheavy element ion: Rf^+. We use the 4-component relativistic Dirac-Coulomb Hamiltonian and the multireference configuration interaction (MRCI) model to tackle the complex electronic structure problem that combines strong relativistic effects and electron correlation. We determine the energies of the ground and the low-lying excited states of Rf+, which originate from the 7s^26d^1, 7s^16d^2, 7s^27p^1, and 7s^16d^17p^1 configurations. The results are discussed vis-\`a-vis the lighter homologue, Hf^+ ion. We also assess the uncertainties of the predicted energy levels. The main purpose of the presented calculations is to provide a reliable prediction of the energy levels and to identify suitable metastable excited states that are good candidates for the planned ion-mobility-assisted laser spectroscopy studies.