Sudden approximation impurity

It should be noted that relation (2.51) is valid within the sudden approximation. However, the relaxation of heavy particle impurities typically involves motion that is slow compared with vibrations of the host lattice (i.e., the tunneling takes place in the adiabatic limit). The net effect of the adiabatic approximation is to renormalize the effective moment of inertia of the particle. This approach was used, for example, to describe vacancy diffusion in light metals. The evolution of the rate constant from Arrhenius behavior to the low-temperature plateau was described within the framework of one-dimensional tunneling of a... 

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