First Determination of the lonization Potential of Americium and Curium

摘要

Investigations of chemical and physical properties of very heavy elements have, among other goals, the aim of determining whether the regularities of the Periodic Table of Elements are maintained up through the heaviest elements or whether they are disturbed by relativistic effects, that is, by changes of the electronic structure due to the relativistic mass increase of inner electrons. The first ionization potential of neutral atoms is one of the properties which sensitively depends on these relativistic effects.