Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-chemistry-course-of-the-year-3-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2022/paper-2a/section-a/15/b/solution

The ground state changes from high-spin , , to low-spin , . The larger splitting eventually compensates the additional pairing cost. Because all plotted excitation energies are re-referenced to the new ground state, the branches change slope at the crossover. The break is not an infinite physical excitation energy or a discontinuity of the underlying Hamiltonian.

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