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In the context of electronic structure and spectroscopy, the term "low-lying electronic states" is quite common but it really isn't defined anywhere. All google search results lead to research papers that just use the term. So my question is, what does it exactly mean? why are they "low"?

Are they "low" because they are:

  1. close to the ground state?
  2. within the valence band?
  3. close to the valence band? etc.

Thanks in advance.

PestoPotato
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1 Answers1

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I normally take low lying states to mean close to the ground state of the total system. For electronic systems this will amount to the lowest unoccupied states, whatever they may be for your particular system

By Symmetry
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