The Number of High-Energy Bands in the Photoelectron Spectrum of Alkanes

It was observed that within the Bieri-Dill-Heilbronner-Schmelzer model for the calculation of the ion-ization energies of alkanes C , there are exactly n C -electron energy levels lying below the degenerate α-ß manifold. We now show that, indeed, this regularity is obeyed by practically all alkane species. Exceptions do exist, but they must possess a (chemically infeasible) group of more than six mutually connected quaternary carbon atoms.