Ground state oftrans-polyacetylene and the Peierls mechanism

Abstract

It is shown formally that the Peierls expression is inadequate for studying the instabilities of a physically realizable one-dimensional chain of atoms, due to the long-range nature of the Coulomb interaction. Detailed total-energy studies of trans-polyacetylene, for both suggested crystal structures (P$2_1$/n,P$2_1$/a) and for the one-dimensional chain, establish that no appreciable total-energy minimum occurs for nonzero dimerization amplitude within the local-density approximation. The measured dimerization is discussed within the context of recent models of electron correlation.