arXiv · 1402.0227
Is the molecular Berry phase an artifact of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation?
Abstract
We demonstrate that the molecular Berry phase and the corresponding non-analyticity in the electronic Born-Oppenheimer wavefunction is, in general, not a true topological feature of the exact solution of the full electron-nuclear Schrödinger equation. For a numerically exactly solvable model we show that a non-analyticity, and the associated geometric phase, only appear in the limit of infinite nuclear mass, while a perfectly smooth behavior is found for any finite nuclear mass.
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S. K. Min, A. Abedi, K. S. Kim, E. K. U. Gross. 2014-02-02. Is the molecular Berry phase an artifact of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation?. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.113.263004
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