Relative equilibria of molecules (Q1277231)

A molecule is considered consisting of \(N\) interacting atoms. The dynamics of the system is given by a Hamiltonian. For a molecule, a relative equilibrium is a motion where a molecule rotates steadily about a fixed axis, which the authors call the dynamical axis, while the shape remains constant. This paper describes an approach to finding families of relative equilibria of molecules that bifurcate from equilibrium configurations as the total angular momentum is increased from zero. It is shown that the bifurcating families correspond to the critical points of a function \(h\) on the sphere which is invariant under the action of the symmetry group of equilibrium point. For each rotation axis of the equilibrium configuration, there is a bifurcating family of relative equilibria for which the molecule rotates about this axis, and for each reflection plane there is a family of relative equilibria for which the molecule rotates about an axis perpendicular to the plane. It is also shown that if the equilibrium is nondegenerate and stable, then the minima, maxima and saddle points of \(h\) correspond respectively to relative equilibria, being Lyapounov stable, linearly stable, and linearly unstable (orbitally). The authors compute explicitly the stability of the bifurcating branches of relative equilibria for some molecules. There are more general theorems on relative equilibria of \(G\)-invariant Hamiltonian systems that bifurcate from equilibria with finite isotropy subgroups as the momentum is varied. In the general case, the function \(h\) is defined on the dual Lie algebra \(g^*\), and the bifurcating relative equilibria correspond to critical points of restriction of \(h\) to the coadjoint orbits in \(g^*\). The authors consider the full Born-Oppenheimer model for the motion of the nuclei and show that the cases of symmetric top and spherical top molecules are more interesting. In particular, typically only a finite number of relative equilibria persist in the Born-Oppenheimer model.