Title: COHERENT TUNNEL REPOLARIZATION OF A HYDROGEN BONDED CHAIN
Authors: P.M.Tomchuk, S.P.Luk'yanets (Institute of Physics, the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 46 Nauky Av., UA-252650 Kyiv-22, Ukraine)

In the present paper we suggest a possible mechanism of repolarization of a short hydrogen bonded chain. This mechanism is based on the coherent tunnel reorientation of ionic groups and is additional to the other one that is realized due to the coherent tunnel repolarization of the hydrogen bonds described in the previous work (J. Mol. Struct. 416, 161 (1997)). With the aid of the instanton method the tunnelling frequency of this reorient transition is calculated in the WKB approximation. The tunnelling frequency of such a flip-flop process does not depend on temperature, and this effect can be observed at low temperatures when tunnelling chain repolarization prevails over the thermal activation one.

Key words: hydrogen bond, macroscopic quantum tunneling, macroscopic quantum coherene, proton transfer
Comments: Figs. 0, Refs. 31, Tabs. 0.