The Total Position Spread in mixed-valence compounds: A study on the H4+ model system.

The behavior of the Total Position Spread (TPS) tensor, which is the second moment cumulant of the total position operator, is investigated in the case of a mixed-valence model system. The system consists of two H2 molecules placed at a distance D. If D is larger than about 4 bohr, the singly ionized system shows a mixed-valence character. It is shown that the magnitude of the TPS has a strong peak in the region of the avoided crossing. We believe that the TPS can be a powerful tool to characterize the behavior of the electrons in realistic mixed-valence compounds.