First-principles study of dynamic symmetry in acrylic acid
摘要
Average crystallographic structures may disguise more complex packing modes, such as commensurate modulations that originate from coherent librational distortions of the lattice. These can be easily overlooked, with striking implications on the understanding of intermolecular interactions, provided that the crystal is described in terms of colorless symmetries. As shown in the 1970s by Kołakowski, lattice modulations with strong librational components can be understood in terms of colored group operations applied to pseudovector quantities, like rotation momenta. Here, we employ Kołakowski’s concepts of dynamic symmetry to computationally predict modulated distortions in crystalline acrylic acid. We show that periodic lattice distortions may indeed originate from a low-frequency phonon instability at the