For the outer valence electrons, Slater's rules predict a modest initial rise down group 15, followed by approximately constant values. Write the effective nuclear charge as , where is the shielding constant. Each atom has , so the other four electrons in the outer group contribute . Electrons in shell contribute each, and those deeper contribute each.[ref]
Applying those weights gives the following original calculations:
The increasing nuclear electric charge is largely offset by additional inner-electron shielding; once the preceding shell contains electrons, these simple weights give a plateau. The shell includes its d electrons. This trend concerns outer-shell values, not every orbital: a electron is shielded only by its partner, so rises strongly down the group. The larger principal shell also means nearly constant outer does not imply nearly constant atomic size or binding energy.