As symmetry operation

As a particular example of materials with high spatial symmetry, we consider first an isotropic chiral bulk medium. Such a medium is, for example, an isotropic solution of enantiomerically pure molecules. Such material has arbitrary rotations in three dimensions as symmetry operations. Under rotations, the electric and magnetic quantities transform similarly. As a consequence, the nonvanishing components of y(2),eee, y 2)-een and y,2)jnee are the same. Due to the isotropy of the medium, each tensor has only one independent component of the xyz type ... 

We address the transformations, i.e., rotation, reflection, etc., also as symmetry operations. We summarize the properties of these transformations ... 

To qualify as symmetry operations the transformations must take the system under consideration into coincidence with itself. 

These three relabelings may be considered as symmetry operations in their own right, or the last may be understood as a combination of the first two, 712 = nQji. Since we... 

In this particular case, the point group can be described as a set of permutations of the labels 0,1,2,3 of the comers of the tetrahedron or as symmetry operations of this polyhedron. However, we should carefully note that the representation of symmetry operations as permutations of comers, or atoms, is not generally unique. For example, in the case of a planar molecule both the reflection in the plane and the identity mapping are represented by the identity permutation, although they are different symmetry operations. consists of all 24 permutations of the corners of the tetrahedron,... 

It is difficult to construct atomistic models for a nanomaterial using conventional methods of simulation, such as symmetry operators, because of the hierarchical levels of structural complexity. Experimentally, such nanostructures evolved during synthesis and therefore perhaps the easiest way to generate full atomistic models is to simulate synthesis . We explore such endeavours in the second section of this chapter. 

In fignre A1.3.9 the Brillouin zone for a FCC and a BCC crystal are illustrated. It is a connnon practice to label high-synnnetry point and directions by letters or symbols. For example, the k = 0 point is called the F point. For cubic crystals, there exist 48 symmetry operations and this synnnetry is maintained in the energy bands e.g., E k, k, k is mvariant under sign pennutations of (x,y, z). As such, one need only have knowledge of (k) in Tof the zone to detennine the energy band tlnoughout the zone. The part of the zone which caimot be reduced by synnnetry is called the irreducible Brillouin zone. 

At this point the reader may feel that we have done little in the way of explaining molecular synnnetry. All we have done is to state basic results, nonnally treated in introductory courses on quantum mechanics, connected with the fact that it is possible to find a complete set of simultaneous eigenfiinctions for two or more commuting operators. However, as we shall see in section Al.4.3.2. the fact that the molecular Hamiltonian //coimmites with and F is intimately coimected to the fact that //commutes with (or, equivalently, is invariant to) any rotation of the molecule about a space-fixed axis passing tlirough the centre of mass of the molecule. As stated above, an operation that leaves the Hamiltonian invariant is a symmetry operation of the Hamiltonian. The infinite set of all possible rotations of the... 

Whenever a fiinction can be written as a product of two or more fiinctions, each of which belongs to one of the synnnetry classes, the symmetry of the product fiinction is the direct product of the syimnetries of its constituents. This direct product is obtained in non-degenerate cases by taking the product of the characters for each symmetry operation. For example, the fiinction xy will have a symmetry given by the direct product of the syimnetries of v and ofy this direct product is obtained by taking the product of the characters for each synnnetry operation. In this example it may be seen that, for each operation, the product of the characters for Bj and B2 irreducible representations gives the character of the representation, so xy transfonns as A2. 

SymApps converts 2D structures From the ChemWindow drawing program into 3D representations with the help of a modified MM2 force field (see Section 7.2). Besides basic visualization tools such as display styles, perspective views, and light source adjustments, the module additionally provides calculations of bond lengths, angles, etc, Moreover, point groups and character tables can be determined. Animations of spinning movements and symmetry operations can also he created and saved as movie files (. avi). 

Operators that eommute with the Hamiltonian and with one another form a partieularly important elass beeause eaeh sueh operator permits eaeh of the energy eigenstates of the system to be labelled with a eorresponding quantum number. These operators are ealled symmetry operators. As will be seen later, they inelude angular momenta (e.g., L2,Lz, S, Sz, for atoms) and point group symmetries (e.g., planes and rotations about axes). Every operator that qualifies as a symmetry operator provides a quantum number with whieh the energy levels of the system ean be labeled. 

Symmetry operators leave the eleetronie Hamiltonian H invariant beeause the potential and kinetie energies are not ehanged if one applies sueh an operator R to the eoordinates and momenta of all the eleetrons in the system. Beeause symmetry operations involve refleetions through planes, rotations about axes, or inversions through points, the applieation of sueh an operation to a produet sueh as H / gives the produet of the operation applied to eaeh term in the original produet. Henee, one ean write ... 

In summary, proper spin eigenfunetions must be eonstmeted from antisymmetrie (i.e., determinental) wavefunetions as demonstrated above beeause the total and total Sz remain valid symmetry operators for many-eleetron systems. Doing so results in the spin-adapted wavefunetions being expressed as eombinations of determinants with eoeffieients determined via spin angular momentum teehniques as demonstrated above. In... 

These six symmetry operations form a mathematieal group. A group is defined as a set of objeets satisfying four properties. 

To illustrate sueh symmetry adaptation, eonsider symmetry adapting the 2s orbital of N and the three Is orbitals of H. We begin by determining how these orbitals transform under the symmetry operations of the C3V point group. The aet of eaeh of the six symmetry operations on the four atomie orbitals ean be denoted as follows ... 

In faet, one finds that the six matriees, Df4)(R), when multiplied together in all 36 possible ways obey the same multiplieation table as did the six symmetry operations. We say the matriees form a representation of the group beeause the matriees have all the properties of the group. 

The importance of the characters of the symmetry operations lies in the fact that they do not depend on the specific basis used to form them. That is, they are invariant to a unitary or orthorgonal transformation of the objects used to define the matrices. As a result, they contain information about the symmetry operation itself and about the space spanned by the set of objects. The significance of this observation for our symmetry adaptation process will become clear later. 

The character of a class depends on the space spanned by the basis of functions on which the symmetry operations act. Above we used (Sn,S 1,82,83) as a basis. 

These six matrices form another representation of the group. In this basis, each character is equal to unity. The representation formed by allowing the six symmetry operations to act on the Is N-atom orbital is clearly not the same as that formed when the same six operations acted on the (8]s[,S 1,82,83) basis. We now need to learn how to further analyze the information content of a specific representation of the group formed when the symmetry operations act on any specific set of objects. 

These six matrices can be verified to multiply just as the symmetry operations do thus they form another three-dimensional representation of the group. We see that in the Ti basis the matrices are block diagonal. This means that the space spanned by the Tj functions, which is the same space as the Sj span, forms a reducible representation that can be decomposed into a one dimensional space and a two dimensional space (via formation of the Ti functions). Note that the characters (traces) of the matrices are not changed by the change in bases. 

Another one-dimensional representation of the group ean be obtained by taking rotation about the Z-axis (the C3 axis) as the objeet on whieh the symmetry operations aet ... 

The basic idea of symmetry analysis is that any basis of orbitals, displacements, rotations, etc. transforms either as one of the irreducible representations or as a direct sum (reducible) representation. Symmetry tools are used to first determine how the basis transforms under action of the symmetry operations. They are then used to decompose the resultant representations into their irreducible components. 

Corresponding to every symmetry element is a symmetry operation which is given the same symbol as the element. For example, C also indicates the actual operation of rotation of the molecule by 2n/n radians about the axis. 

A property such as a vibrational wave function of, say, H2O may or may not preserve an element of symmetry. If it preserves the element, carrying out the corresponding symmetry operation, for example (t , has no effect on the wave function, which we write as... 

Using the C2 character table (Table A. 11 in Appendix A) the characters of the vibrations under the various symmetry operations can be classified as follows ... 

In Section 4.3.f it was shown that there are 3N — 5 normal vibrations in a linear molecule and 3N — 6 in a non-linear molecule, where N is the number of atoms in the molecule. There is a set of fairly simple rules for determining the number of vibrations belonging to each of the symmetry species of the point group to which the molecule belongs. These rules involve the concept of sets of equivalent nuclei. Nuclei form a set if they can be transformed into one another by any of the symmetry operations of the point group. For example, in the C2 point group there can be, as illustrated in Figure 6.18, four kinds of set ... 

The cyclobutene-butadiene interconversion can serve as an example of the reasoning employed in construction of an orbital correlation diagram. For this reaction, the four n orbitals of butadiene are converted smoothly into the two n and two a orbitals of the ground state of cyclobutene. The analysis is done as shown in Fig. 11.3. The n orbitals of butadiene are ip2, 3, and ij/. For cyclobutene, the four orbitals are a, iz, a, and n. Each of the orbitals is classified with respect to the symmetiy elements that are maintained in the course of the transformation. The relevant symmetry features depend on the structure of the reacting system. The most common elements of symmetiy to be considered are planes of symmetiy and rotation axes. An orbital is classified as symmetric (5) if it is unchanged by reflection in a plane of symmetiy or by rotation about an axis of symmetiy. If the orbital changes sign (phase) at each lobe as a result of the symmetry operation, it is called antisymmetric (A). Proper MOs must be either symmetric or antisymmetric. If an orbital is not sufficiently symmetric to be either S or A, it must be adapted by eombination with other orbitals to meet this requirement. 

Figure 6-3. Top Structure of the T6 single crystal unit cell. The a, b, and c crystallographic axes are indicated. Molecule 1 is arbitrarily chosen, whilst the numbering of the other molecules follows the application of the factor group symmetry operations as discussed in the text. Bottom direction cosines between the molecular axes L, M, N and the orthogonal crystal coordinate system a, b, c. The a axis is orthogonal to the b monoclinic axis.

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