Computational atomic physics continues to play a crucial role in both increasing the understanding of fundamental physics (e.g., quantum electrodynamics and correlation) and producing atomic data for interpreting observations from large-scale research facilities ranging from fusion reactors to high-power laser systems, space-based telescopes and isotope separators. A number of different computational methods, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, is available to meet these tasks. Here, we review the relativistic multiconfiguration method as it applies to the General Relativistic Atomic Structure Package [grasp2018, C. Froese Fischer, G. Gaigalas, P. Jonsson, J. Bieron, Comput. Phys. Commun. (2018). DOI: 10.1016/j.cpc.2018.10.032]. To illustrate the capacity of the package, examples of calculations of relevance for nuclear physics and astrophysics are presented.

As the most abundant element in the universe after hydrogen and helium, oxygen plays a key role in planetary, stellar, and galactic astrophysics. Its abundance is especially influential in terms of stellar structure and evolution, and as the dominant opacity contributor at the base of the Sun's convection zone, it is central to the discussion on the solar modelling problem. However, abundance analyses require complete and reliable sets of atomic data. We present extensive atomic data for O I by using the multiconfiguration Dirac-Hartree-Fock and relativistic configuration interaction methods. We provide the lifetimes and transition probabilities for radiative electric dipole transitions and we compare them with results from previous calculations and available measurements. The accuracy of the computed transition rates is evaluated by the differences between the transition rates in Babushkin and Coulomb gauges, as well as via a cancellation factor analysis. Out of the 989 computed transitions in this work, 205 are assigned to the accuracy classes AA-B, that is, with uncertainties smaller than 10%, following the criteria defined by the Atomic Spectra Database from the National Institute of Standards and Technology. We discuss the influence of the new log(gf) values on the solar oxygen abundance, ultimately advocating for log epsilon(O) = 8.70 +/- 0.04.

Accurate and extensive atomic data are essential for spectroscopic analyses of stellar atmospheres and other astronomical objects. We present energy levels, lifetimes, and transition probabilities for neutral nitrogen, the sixth most abundant element in the cosmos. The calculations employ the fully relativistic multiconfiguration Dirac-Hartree-Fock and relativistic configuration interaction methods, and span the 103 lowest states up to and including 2s(2)2p(2)5s. Our theoretical energies are in excellent agreement with the experimental data, with an average relative difference of 0.07%. In addition, our transition probabilities are in good agreement with available experimental and theoretical data. We further verify the agreement of our data with experimental results via a reanalysis of the solar nitrogen abundance, with the results from the Babushkin and Coulomb gauges consistent to 2% or 0.01 dex. We estimated the uncertainties of the computed transition data based on a statistical analysis of the differences between the transition rates in the Babushkin and Coulomb gauges. Out of the 1701 computed electric dipole transitions in this work, 83 (536) are associated with uncertainties smaller than 5% (10%).

Multiconfiguration Dirac-Hartree-Fock (MCDHF) and relativistic configuration interaction (RCI) calculations are performed for 22 states in singly ionized tin (Sn II) belonging to the 5s2ns (n=6,7), 5s2nd (n=5,6), 5s5p2 even parity configurations and the 5s2np (n=5,6,7), 5s24f odd parity configurations. Valence-valence and core-valence correlation effects are taken into account through configuration state function (CSF) expansions. Complete and consistent data sets of level energies, wavelengths, oscillator strengths, lifetimes and transition rates among all these states are given. The results are compared with existing theoretical and experimental results. There is an excellent agreement for calculated excitation energies with experimental data from the NIST database. Lifetimes and transition rates are also in agreement with the results from previous calculations and available measurements for most of the transitions.

Ab initio calculations sometimes do not reproduce the experimentally observed energy separations at a high enough accuracy. Fine-tuning of diagonal elements of the Hamiltonian matrix is a process which seeks to ensure that calculated energy separations of the states that mix are in agreement with experiment. The process gives more accurate measures of the mixing than can be obtained in ab initio calculations. Fine-tuning requires the Hamiltonian matrix to be diagonally dominant, which is generally not the case for calculations based on jj-coupled configuration state functions. We show that this problem can be circumvented by a method that transforms the Hamiltonian in jj-coupling to a Hamiltonian in LSJ-coupling for which fine-tuning applies. The fine-tuned matrix is then transformed back to a Hamiltonian in jj-coupling. The implementation of the method into the General Relativistic Atomic Structure Package is described and test runs to validate the program operations are reported. The new method is applied to the computation of the 2s(21)S(0)-2s2p(1,3)P(1) transitions in C III and to the computation of Rydberg transitions in B I, for which the 2s(2)p(22)S(1/2) perturber enters the 2s(2)ns(2)S(1/2) series. Improved convergence patterns and results are found compared with ab initio calculations.

grasp is a software package in Fortran 95, adapted to run in parallel under MPI, for research in atomic physics. The basic premise is that, given a wave function, any observed atomic property can be computed. Thus, the first step is always to determine a wave function. Different properties challenge the accuracy of the wave function in different ways. This software is distributed under the MIT Licence.

In multiconfiguration Dirac-Hartree-Fock (MCDHF) calculations, there is a strong coupling between the localization of the orbital set and the configuration state function (CSF) expansion used to determine it. Furthermore, it is well known that an orbital set resulting from calculations, including CSFs describing core-core correlation and other effects, which aims to lower the weighted energies of a number of targeted states as much as possible, may be inadequate for building CSFs that account for correlation effects that are energetically unimportant but decisive for computed properties, e.g., hyperfine structures or transition rates. This inadequacy can be traced in irregular or oscillating convergence patterns of the computed properties as functions of the increasing orbital set. In order to alleviate the above problems, we propose a procedure in which the orbital set is obtained by merging several separately optimized, and mutually non-orthogonal, orbital sets. This computational strategy preserves the advantages of capturing electron correlation on the total energy through the variational MCDHF method and allows to target efficiently the correlation effects on the considered property. The orbital sets that are merged are successively orthogonalized against each other to retain orthonormality. The merged orbital set is used to build CSFs that efficiently lower the energy and also adequately account for the correlation effects that are important for the property. We apply the procedure to compute the hyperfine structure constants for the 1s(2)2s (2)S1/2 and 1s(2)2p (2Po)(1/2, 3/2) states in Li-7 and show that it leads to considerably improved convergence patterns with respect to the increasing orbital set compared to standard calculations based on a single orbital set, energy optimized in the variational procedure. The perspectives of the new procedure are discussed in a broader context in the summary.

The latest published version of GRASP (General-purpose Relativistic Atomic Structure Package), i.e., GRASP2018, retains a few suboptimal subroutines/algorithms, which reflect the limited memory and file storage of computers available in the 1980s. Here we show how the efficiency of the relativistic self-consistent-field (SCF) procedure of the multiconfiguration-Dirac-Hartree-Fock (MCDHF) method and the relativistic configuration-interaction (RCI) calculations can be improved significantly. Compared with the original GRASP codes, the present modified version reduces the CPU times by factors of a few tens or more. The MPI performances for all the original and modified codes are carefully analyzed. Except for diagonalization, all computational processes show good MPI scaling.

In configuration interaction (CI) calculations the atomic wave functions are given as expansions over configuration state functions (CSFs) built on relativistic one-electron orbitals. The expansion coefficients of the configuration state functions are obtained by constructing and diagonalizing the Hamiltonian matrix. Here we show how a regrouping of the configuration state functions and the introduction of configuration state function generators (CSFGs) allow for a substantial reduction of the computational load in relativistic CI calculations. The computational methodology based on configuration state function generators, recently implemented in the General Relativistic Atomic Structure package (Grasp2018, Froese Fischer et al. (2019) [16]), is applied to a number of atomic systems and correlation models with increasing sets of one-electron orbitals. We demonstrate a reduction of the CPU time with factors between 10 and 14 for the largest CI calculations. The inclusion of the Breit interaction into the calculations is time consuming. By applying restrictions on the Breit integrals we show that it is possible to further reduce the CPU times with factors between 2 and 3, with negligible changes to the computed excitation energies. We also demonstrate that the introduction of configuration state function generators allows for efficient a priori condensation techniques, with reductions of the expansions sizes with factors between 1.5 and 2.5 and the CPU time with factors between 2.5 and 4.5, again with negligible changes to the excitation energies. In total we demonstrate reductions of the CPU time with factors up to 68 for CI calculations based on configuration state function generators, restrictions on the Breit integrals and with a priori condensed expansions compared to ordinary CI calculations without restrictions on the Breit integrals and with full expansions. Further perspectives of the new methodology based on configuration state function generators are given.