Electronic Broken Symmetry in Dense Hydrogen
Abstract
Use of the Teter, Allan, and Payne electronic structure algorithm (M. C. Payne et al.), Rev. Mod. Phys. 64, 1045 (1992) predicts a new ground-state for hydrogen at high densities. It is characterized by a breaking of the charge symmetry normally associated with the diatomic molecule, and it begins to appear at about 9-fold solid compression, that is, at densities close to the point where strong infrared activity is reported. The charge asymmetry initially increases with further increase in density; its physical origin can be linked by classical arguments to the onset of a dielectric instability, and at the microscopic level to a a charge density wave. It appears driven by exchange occurring in a system where local charge densities are both exceedingly high and very inhomogeneous. The picture accounts for the observed discontinuity in the vibron as well as its temperature dependence. It also accounts for the dramatic increase in infrared activity, and the observed isotope effects.
- Publication:
-
APS March Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- March 1996
- Bibcode:
- 1996APS..MAR.N2706E