Relations between the low atomic configurations in the long periods

Abstract

The analysis of the spectra of the first and second d -electron periods is now sufficiently complete to make possible a comparison of the lowest terms of the configurations d n , d n-1 s , d n-2 s 2 through many ionizations. Theoretical formulae in terms of the Slater parameters are available in the literature or are here deduced. It is shown that the empirical data can be used to find values of these parameters for all the elements of a period by an analysis of the relative positions of the configurations in successive elements across the period. The new values of the parameters obtained in this way are compared with published values obtained from the data on individual elements. When successive ionizations are compared, the junctions between the configurations show astonishing and unexplained regularities which are quite different in the two long periods.