Effect of electron correlation on the Pa atom energy levels and electron coupling

The lower energy levels of the protactinium (Pa) atom are unusually difficult to treat theoretically. Pa is located where the 6d and 5f energies cross; simple calculations consistently put the electron configurations $5f^16d^27s^2$ and $5f^26d^17s^2$ in the incorrect order. We have used multireference spin?Corbit configuration interaction to compute the energies of these states to determine which additional interactions need to be included. We also discuss the less common J ₁ j coupling scheme suggested for these atomic states with applications also to the $5f^16d^2$ and $5f^26d^1$ states of $hbox{Pa}^{2+}$ .