Symmetries of Nonlinear Vibrations in Tetrahedral Molecular Configurations

Abstract

We study nonlinear vibrational modes of oscillations for tetrahedral configurations of particles. In the case of tetraphosphorus, the interaction of atoms is given by bond stretching and van der Waals forces. Using equivariant gradient degree, we present a full topological classification of the spatio-temporal symmetries of the periodic solutions. This procedure gives all the symmetries of the nonlinear vibrations for general force fields.