Nuclear quadrupole moment of Au197 from high-accuracy atomic calculations

Abstract

The electric field gradient (EFG) at the gold nucleus is calculated using a finite field approach, to make the extraction of the nuclear quadrupole moment Q from experimental nuclear quadrupole coupling constants possible. The four-component Dirac-Coulomb Hamiltonian serves as the framework, 51 of the 79 electrons are correlated by the relativistic Fock-space coupled cluster method with single and double excitations, and the contribution of the Gaunt term, the main part of the Breit interaction, is evaluated. Large basis sets (up to 26s22p18d12f8g5h uncontracted Gaussians) are employed. Energy splittings of the 2D5/2 and 2D3/2 levels, rather than level shifts, are used to extract the EFG constants, as the former remain linear with Q up to 10(-5) a.u., whereas the latter display significant nonlinearity even at Q=10(-8) a.u. Larger Q values lead to larger energy changes and better precision. Excellent agreement (0.1%) is obtained between Q values derived from 2D5/2 and 2D3/2 data. Systematic errors connected with neglecting triple and higher excitations, truncating the basis and orbital active space, and approximating the Gaunt contribution are evaluated. The final value of Q(197Au) is 521(7) mb. It is lower than the muonic 547(16) mb and agrees within error bounds with the recent value of 510(15) mb obtained from molecular calculations.