Electronic structure theory to decipher the chemical bonding in actinide systems

International audienceThe chemical bonding in actinide compounds is usually analysed by inspecting the shape and the occupation of the orbitals or by calculating bond orders which are based on orbital overlap and occupation numbers. However, this may not give a definite answer because the choice of the partitioning method may strongly influence the result possibly leading to qualitatively different answers. In this review, we summarized the state-of-the-art of methods dedicated to the theoretical characterisation of bonding including charge, orbital, quantum chemical topology and energy decomposition analyses. This review is not exhaustive but aims to highlight some of the ways opened up by recent methodological developments. Various examples have been chosen to illustrate this progress