Concerning jahn-teller effects.
Jahn-Teller effects are grouped into two categories. The first arises from incomplete shells of degenerate orbitals. It includes the first-order Jahn-Teller effect, and the pseudo Jahn-Teller effect. The second arises from filled and empty molecular orbitals that are close in energy, and is the second-order Jahn-Teller effect. The two categories have quite different physical bases. As a result, geometric distortions produced by the first are quite small and normally lead to dynamic effects only. In favorable cases, the second-order Jahn-Teller effect produces very large distortions, including complete dissociation of a molecule. This can occur even when the relevant molecular orbitals are separated in energy by as much as 4 eV.
Chemistry Department, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60201.
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Pearson