Ab initio calculations of the hyperfine structure of 109Cd, 109Cd+ and reevaluation of the nuclear quadrupole moment Q(109Cd)

Abstract

Large scale ab initio calculations of the electric contribution (i.e. the electric field gradient) to the electric quadrupole hyperfine interaction constants $B$ for the $5p~^2P_{3/2}$ state in $^{109}$Cd$^+$ ion and the $5s5p~^3P_{1,2}$ states in neutral $^{109}$Cd atom were performed. To probe the sensitivity of $B$ to different electron correlation effects, six sets of variational multi-configuration Dirac-Hartree-Fock and relativistic configuration interaction calculations employing different strategies were carried out. The calculated electric field gradients, together with experimental values of $B$, allow us to extract a new value of the nuclear electric quadrupole moment $Q$($^{109}$Cd) = 0.634(22) b which is about 5\% larger than the recommended value [Stone, At. Data Nucl. Data Tables 111-112, 1 (2016); Pyykk\"{o}, Mol. Phys. 116, 1328 (2018)]. Efforts were made to provide a realistic theoretical uncertainty for the final $Q$ value based on statistical principles and correlation with the magnetic dipole hyperfine interaction constant $A$.