https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-022-03635-1
Regular Article
Feynman’s path integral approach: a novel method to break the symmetry to study off-center confined and exohedral atoms
Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Patna, 801106, Bihta, India
Received:
11
July
2022
Accepted:
27
December
2022
Published online:
18
January
2023
Atoms trapped in fullerene C60 shell, known as confined atoms (
), show intriguing features, which makes them suitable for several applications in science and technology. A rather simple model potential approach describes the system adequately, for example, the atom trapped in the center of the annular square well (ASW) potential. Nevertheless, the confined atoms can rattle around inside the 
and therefore, the atom is not necessarily located at the center. The present work employs the celebrated Feynman’s path integral approach to break the symmetry to investigate the effect of confinement on the off-centered endohedral and exohedral complexes. A systematic study of the electronic properties of the H atom as the atom location varies from center to outside the ASW cage is performed. Besides, the strength of the ASW potential is altered to investigate the effect on the electronic probability density and the ground-state energy.
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