  Laser cooling and trapping of lanthanides has opened the possibility to carry
out new experiments with ultracold dipolar gases, for example for quantum
simulation of solid state physics. To identify new suitable candidates for
laser-cooling, it is important to have a precise spectroscopic knowledge of the
atom under consideration. Along this direction, we present here a detailed
modeling of the energy levels of neutral neodymium (Nd), an element belonging
to the left part of the lanthanide row, which has not yet been considered for
laser-cooling. Using the semi-empirical method implemented in the Cowan suite
of codes, we are in particular able to interpret more than 200 experimental
levels of the NIST database belonging to both parities. The optimal set of
atomic parameters obtained after the least-square fitting step can serve to
calculate radiative transition probabilities in the future.
