Accurate electron affinity of atomic cerium and excited states of its anion**Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 91736102 and 11974199) and the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2018YFA0306504).

Abstract

Electron affinities (EA) of most lanthanide elements still remain unknown owing to their relatively lower EA values and the fairly complicated electronic structures. In the present work, we report the high-resolution photoelectron spectra of atomic cerium anion Ce− using the slow electron velocity-map imaging method in combination with a cold ion trap. The electron affinity of Ce is determined to be 4840.62(21) cm−1 or 0.600160(26) eV. Moreover, several excited states of Ce− (4H9/2, 4I9/2, 2H9/2, 2G9/2, 2G7/2, 4H13/2, 2F5/2, and 4I13/2) are observed.