Journal of Physical Chemistry A, Vol.113, No.30, 8737-8745, 2009
Are the Ground States of the Later Actinocenes Multiconfigurational? All-Electron Spin-Orbit Coupled CASPT2 Calculations on An(eta(8)-C8H8)(2) (An = Th, U, Pu, Cm)
Spin-orbit free and spin-orbit coupled CASPT2 wave functions and energies are presented for the ground and low-lying excited states of four actinide element sandwich molecules; thorocene (ThCOT2), uranocene (UCOT2), plutonocene (PuCOT2), and curocene (CmCOT2). Spin-orbit coupling is found to make little difference to the equilibrium geometry of uranocene and plutonocene but has a significant effect on the energy spectrum of all the systems considered here other than thorocene. In all cases, however, the spin-orbit free ground states make the dominant contribution to their spin-orbit coupled counterparts. Following work presented in J. Phys. Chem. A 2009, 113, 2896, the variation in the multiconfigurational character of the ground-state wave functions as the 5f series is crossed is quantified via the occupation of the a(u)/b(1u) (e(2u)) metal-ring bonding and antibonding natural orbitals. The ground state of plutonocene is found to be nondegenerate with vertical bar M-J vertical bar = 0, in agreement with its temperature-independent paramagnetism.