Unified crystal-field picture for actinide dioxides

Abstract

We present a perturbative model for crystal-field calculations in f-electron compounds, which keeps into account the mixing between states labelled by different total angular momentum J. We use this model to analyze the results of inelastic neutron scattering experiments on actinide dioxides accumulated over a number of years. By comparing our calculations with the published results of other experiments, we point out that a unified crystal-field picture for this series of compounds clearly emerges.