“…Upon mixing all states under spin− orbit coupling (SOC), the ground pseudodoublet (which has a tunnel splitting of 0.00002 cm −1 at the CASSCF-SO level or 0.0002 cm −1 at the CASPT2-SO level, as Dy(II) is non-Kramers) is dominated by the first and second spin-free roots, meaning that it derives from the 7 H term. To interrogate the f−d coupling further, we project the total ab initio Hamiltonian onto a model space comprising of S 5d = 1/2, S 4f = 5/2, and L 4f = 5; we do so by projecting the L 4f = 5 (H) subspace from the spin-free CASSCF/CASPT2 Hamiltonians and thus removing the L 4f = 3 (F) content, 65 which is justified as the f−f interelectronic repulsion is greater than the f−d coupling here.…”