Calculation of the phonon spectrum in thorium

Abstract

Due to the comparatively extended $d$ states in the transition metal thorium, it is argued that the pseudopotential method may be a fairly realistic approach to this element. Calculations of the phonon spectrum with an empirically derived form factor are shown to give quite good agreement with recent experiments. Also the calculated values of the elastic constants, the bulk modulus, the Debye temperature, and the binding energy are found to be most reasonable.