How Well Do We Know Nuclear Electric Quadrupole Moments?

A new Table of Recommended Nuclear Electric Quadrupole Moments was published recently [1]. The main feature of the table is the adoption, wherever possible, of the best available calculation of the electric field gradient (efg), required to extract the moment from the measured quantity in most measurement methods. This paper presents a short discussion of the accuracy to which quadrupole moments of nuclear states of all elements are known, highlighting that fact that few, if any, are known to better than a few percent. For some 19 elements no reliable efg has been adopted and up-to-date calculation for these elements remains an outstanding need.