  The densities of the valence and conduction band electronic states of the
newly discovered layered superconductors LaOFeAs, LaO$_{0.87}$F$_{0.13}$FeAs
(Tc=26 K), SmO$_{0.95}$F$_{0.05}$FeAs and SmO$_{0.85}$F$_{0.15}$FeAs (Tc=43 K)
are studied using soft X-ray absorption and emission spectroscopy combined with
FP LAPW calculations of LaOFeAs, LaO$_{0.875}$FeAs and
LaO$_{0.875}$F${0.125}$FeAs. The Fe 3d-states are localized in energy near the
top of the valence band and are partially hybridized with p-type O (2p), As
(4p), and La (6p) states approximately 3 eV below the Fermi energy. The Fe L3
X-ray emission spectra do not show any features that would indicate the
presence of the low Hubbard 3d-band or the quasiparticle peak that were
predicted by the DMFT analysis of LaOFeAs. We can conclude that the
LaOFeAs-type compounds do not represent strongly correlated systems. When
either oxygen vacancies or fluorine dopants are included in numerical
electronic structure calculations the width of O 2p-band decreases, but the
distribution of Fe 3d-states is largely unaffected.
