Fundamentals of Molecular Symmetry

Molecular symmetry operations provide an easily applied tool for understanding and predicting molecular properties, including certain reaction dynamics and quantum mechanical descriptions of molecules. Traditionally the molecular approach has been taught through point group and rotational symmetries (Schonflies notation and group theory) to undergraduates and graduates in chemistry, physics and material science and then these are applied to understanding various molecular properties. In this book the authors take a deeper and more rigorous approach to molecular symmetry, which leads to a greater insight into the application of symmetry in predicting and explaining the observational spectroscopic results and quantum mechanical applications, but also yields the simpler idealised symmetry operations for 'simple' molecules. This more in depth approach is needed by chemical physicists and physical chemists for detailed spectroscopic analysis of molecular materials (and has applications from characterising new compounds, understanding electronic structure and reaction dynamics to exploring the composition of interstellar gas) and quantum mechanical applications. This text provides a through grounding in molecular symmetry and group theory suitable for undergraduates and more detailed applications needed by graduate students and researchers in molecular physics, chemical physics, physical chemistry and solid state physics.