Effect of Symmetry on the Band Structure of Polymers

Abstract

It may appear surprising that any lectures on the elementary symmetry properties of polymers would be considered necessary in an Advanced Study Institute of this kind. However, if one examines no more than the literature on polyethylene band structures, one finds papers by Imamura¹, Morokuma² and Clementi³ in which some fundamental consequences of the molecular symmetry were not appreciated. It is therefore quite appropriate that we use the regular polyethylene chain to illustrate in some detail how the line group representations are generated and how they are used.