Scalar static polarizabilities of lanthanides and actinides

We calculate scalar static polarizabilities for lanthanides and actinides, the atoms with open $4f$ or $5f$ subshells. We show that polarizabilities of the low states are approximately the same for all states of a given configuration, and we present a way of calculating them reducing valence space to just two or three valence electrons occupying $6s$ and $5d$ states for lanthanides or $7s$ and $6d$ states for actinides, while $4f$ and $5f$ states are considered to be in the core. The configuration interaction technique is used to calculate polarizabilities of lanthanides and actinides for all states of the $4f^{n}6s^2$ and $4f^{n-1}6s^{2}5d$ configurations of lanthanides and all states of the $5f^{n}7s^2$ and $5f^{n-1}7s^{2}6d$ configurations of actinides. Polarizability of the electron core (including $f$ orbitals) has been calculated in the random-phase approximation.