Chaos in a Jahn-Teller molecule - art. no. 026216

The Jahn-Teller system E x b(1) + b(2) has a particular degeneracy, where t he vibronic potential has an elliptical minimum. In the general case where the ellipse does not reduce to a circle, the classical motion in the potent ial is chaotic, tending to trapping near one of the extrema of the ellipse. In the quantum problem, the motion consists of correlated tunneling from o ne extremum to the opposite, leading to an average angular momentum reminis cent of that of the better known E x e dynamic Jahn-Teller system.