Insights into the excited states of 5f systems: Protactinium and Uranium

The calculation of the excited states of actinide systems is a challenging task because of the delicate influence of electron correlation and relativistic effects. Density functional theory is not applicable for obtaining quantitative results, hence multiconfigurational wavefunction based methods have to be used. State of the art is a combination of spinfree CASSCF and CASPT2/NEVPT2 and a following inclusion of spin-orbit coupling.
This talk presents quantitative excited state energy calculations of simple Protactinium and Uranium systems in comparison with qualitative group-theoretical considerations.