Nonrigid systems in chemistry: A unified view

✍ Scribed by Michael E. Kellman

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 179 KB
• Volume: 65
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0020-7608
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1097-461x(1997)65:5<399::aid-qua4>3.0.co;2-r

✦ Synopsis

Recent discoveries show that phenomena in highly excited states of atoms and molecules are qualitatively different from the standard ''planetary'' model of the atom and the near-rigid model of molecules, characteristic of these systems in their low-energy states. Highly excited states of two-electron atoms show ''molecular'' behavior of a nonrigid linear structure undergoing collective rotation and vibration. Highly excited states of molecules display strong effects of normal mode anharmonicity and coupling that induce bifurcations on the route to molecular chaos and isomerization. Hints of a unified view for both systems are emerging in terms of approximate dynamical symmetry principles and methods of nonlinear classical mechanics such as bifurcation theory.