Spectrum of Singly Charged Uranium (U II) : Theoretical Interpretation of Energy Levels, Partition Function and Classified Ultraviolet Lines
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This is an excellent piece of work presenting a new interpretation for a large number of energy levels in singly ionized uranium. The manuscript is clearly written and the method used as well as the results obtained are discussed in detail. This work undoubtedly deserves to be published. I only have the two following minor suggestions :
1) In the title of Table 1, it would be clearer to give the meaning of the symbols used (N_tot, N_ZE, N_IS and N_ident).
2) In Section 3.3, it is shown that the use of fitted energies is, as expected, better than the use of ab initio values for estimating the partition functions. However, as far as I understand, this conclusion is only drawn when replacing fitted data by experimental ones. It would also be interesting to compare the partition functions obtained using ALL the calculated (fitted) energy levels (i.e. including also those for which there is no available experimental data) and the values obtained when using only experimentally known levels.
Author Response
Please find our reply in the attached file
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
This paper reports on the analysis of several uranium emission spectra take in “the late 80s.” The analysis seems straightforward, quite exhaustive, and should be ready for publication soon. Work seems anything but novel but its comprehensive nature will make it a worth addition to the literature. There are, however, some issues that must be addressed.
· First and foremost is the English used in this paper. It is, at best and in many, cases (too many to enumerate) awkward in its formulation. While the meaning of the authors was, in all cases, decipherable, this is barest minimum of praise. I would urge the authors to have someone with a greater understanding of written English proofread the paper. This is not something that can be left to the journal’s copy editors.
o As an example, starting at the end of line 22 is the sentence, “Not only specific radiative data for this transition are needed, partition functions depending on level energies relative to the ground level 5f36d7s 4I9/2 also plays a role.” This sentence, hueing as closely to the authors apparently intended formulation as I am able, should read, “Not only are specific radiative data for this transition needed but so are partition functions that depend on energy levels relative to the ground level 5f36d7s 4I9/2.”
o I sympathize with the authors and am well aware of the infuriating similarities and differences in sentence formulations across languages (especially, as this case seems, between French and English). I do not wish to discourage them in any way. Still, this is an area of the paper that needs to be addressed.
· With respect to the original experiment, if it happened in the 1980s then the language of the abstract must be altered to reflect that. The first sentence of the abstract makes it seem as though the initial experiment took place recently. Only in the body of the paper (in Section 2) is this made clear.
· The original experiment needs a citation. On line 48, after mentioning that the observation took place “in the late eighties,” please insert a citation.
· Is this the first time that this particular data set has been analyzed? If so, then it must be stated (and, also, congratulations). If not then the previous groups looking at this data set should be acknowledged.
· It would be nice, when discussing the analysis of the spectra, to include a couple of sample spectra (one typical case and one atypical but illustrative case) to help with the uncertainty discussion.
While this is technically a rejection, I look forward to and encourage the authors' resubmission.
Author Response
Please find our reply in the attached file
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
I wish to thank the authors for the changes and recommend this for publications.
