Excited state quantum phase transitions in the bending spectra of molecules

Abstract

We present an extension of the Hamiltonian of the two dimensional limit of the vibron model encompassing all possible interactions up to four-body operators. We apply this Hamiltonian to the modeling of the experimental bending spectrum of fourteen molecules. The bending degrees of freedom of the selected molecular species include all possible situations: linear, bent, and nonrigid equilibrium structures; demonstrating the flexibility of the algebraic approach, that allows for the consideration of utterly different physical cases with a general formalism and a single Hamiltonian. For each case, we compute predicted term values used to depict the quantum monodromy diagram, the Birge-Sponer plot, the participation ratio. We also show the bending energy functional obtained using the coherent --or intrinsic-- state formalism.