Structures of hydrogen molecules in single-walled carbon nanotubes

Endohedral impurities in carbon nanotubes

A generalization of the Anderson model that includes pseudo-Jahn-Teller impurity coupling is proposed to describe distortions of an endohedral impurity in a carbon nanotube. Within mean-field theory, spontaneous axial symmetry breaking is found when the vibronic coupling strength g exceeds a critical value. The effective potential is found to have O(2) symmetry, in agreement with numerical calculations. For metallic zigzag nanotubes endohedrally doped with transition metals in the dilute limit, the low-energy properties of the system may display two-channel Kondo behavior; however, strong vibronic coupling is seen to exponentially suppress the Kondo energy scale.