  We present results for the electronic structure of alpha uranium using a
recently developed quasiparticle self-consistent GW method (QSGW). This is the
first time that the f-orbital electron-electron interactions in an actinide has
been treated by a first-principles method beyond the level of the generalized
gradient approximation (GGA) to the local density approximation (LDA). We show
that the QSGW approximation predicts an f-level shift upwards of about 0.5 eV
with respect to the other metallic s-d states and that there is a significant
f-band narrowing when compared to LDA band-structure results. Nonetheless,
because of the overall low f-electron occupation number in uranium,
ground-state properties and the occupied band structure around the Fermi energy
is not significantly affected. The correlations predominate in the unoccupied
part of the f states. This provides the first formal justification for the
success of LDA and GGA calculations in describing the ground-state properties
of this material.
