Presence and Character of the 5f Electrons in the Actinide Metals

The sensitivity of the Image level binding energy to the occupation of the 5f orbital is pointed out and used to demonstrate the presence of 5f electrons in the uranium metal. It is suggested that the valence band spectrum of uranium might contain satellites originating from excitations to localized 5f-electron configurations.

Different kinds of core-hole screenings are discussed for the actinide metals as well as the difference between inner and outer core electron ionizations. Finally, the question of itinerant versus localized 5f behaviour is treated by means of a total energy comparison and the critical separation is found to take place between plutonium and americium.