Thallium (81(217)Tl, Bismuth (83(217)Bi), Astatine (85(217)At), Francium (87(217)Fr), Actinium (89(217)Ac) and Protactinium (91(217)Pa) are of odd-proton numbers among the mass chain A = 217. In the present work, the half-lives and gamma transitions for the six nuclei have been studied and adopted based on the recently published interactions or unevaluated nuclear data sets XUNDL. The Q (α) has...

Astatine (Z = 85) is the heaviest member of the elements of group 17 of the Periodic System (halogens). About 20 isotopes are known, and some of them have been identified as short-lived products in the natural radioactive series. The longest-lived isotope is 210At with a half-life of only 8.3 hours. Consequently, macroscopic quantities of this element cannot be accumulated. Our knowledge on its...

The nature of chemical bonds in heavy main-group diatomics is discussed from the viewpoint of effective bond orders, which are computed from spin-orbit wave functions resulting from spin-orbit configuration interaction calculations. The reliability of the relativistic correlated wave functions obtained in such two-step spin-orbit coupling frameworks is assessed by benchmark studies of the spect...

A novel expansion of the Thomas-Fermi potential for a weakly ionized atom is presented. It is employed in calculating the ionization energies of neutral atoms as they are predicted by an extended version of the Thomas-Fermi model which includes the exchange energy and the leading quantum correction. The ionization energy, I, can be split into a smooth part, /stat, that is here obtained by the s...