Min, S. K., Abedi, A., Kim, K. S., Gross, E. K. U.
Is the molecular Berry phase an artifact of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation?
Physical Review Letters 113, (26),pp 263004/1-5 (2014)
We demonstrate that the molecular Berry phase and the corresponding nonanalyticity in the electronic
Born-Oppenheimer wave function is, in general, not a true topological feature of the exact solution of the
full electron-nuclear Schrödinger equation. For a numerically exactly solvable model we show that a
nonanalyticity, and the associated geometric phase, only appear in the limit of infinite nuclear mass, while a
perfectly smooth behavior is found for any finite nuclear mass.
TH-2014-49