Spin–Orbit Coupling and Potential Energy Functions of Ar2+ and Kr2+ by High-Resolution Photoelectron Spectroscopy and ab Initio Quantum Chemistry

Theoretical study on low-lying electronic states of Kr2(+), Xe2(+), and Rn2(+)

In this work, the equation-of-motion coupled-cluster approach with spin-orbit coupling (SOC) for ionization potentials (IP) at the singles and doubles level (EOMIP-CCSD) is employed to calculate spectroscopic constants of low-lying states of rare gas dimer ions Kr2(+), Xe2(+), and Rn2(+). Two approaches are proposed to include contributions of triples: (1) energies of these states are calculated by adding the IPs from EOMIP-CCSD and the CCSD(T) energy of the rare gas dimers and (2) CCSD(T) energies without SOC for Rg2(+) are first calculated and energies of these states with SOC are determined subsequently using the SOC matrix between these states. The first approach can provide accurate results for the three most stable states, while overestimates bond lengths for the other states. The second approach has been adopted previously and the SOC matrix element between (2)Σ1∕2 (+) and (2)Π1∕2 states was set to be 1/2 times that of the SOC constant. In our work, the SOC matrix elements are determined from the calculated IPs and reasonable results for these states can be achieved with this approach, which could be useful for experimental works.