Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-chemistry-course-of-the-year-3-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2022/paper-2b/section-b/36/a/ii/solution

Treat the site atomic orbitals as orthonormal, as in the Hückel method. A normalized set of symmetry-adapted linear combinations is
The first combination is unchanged by every operation; the alternating combination has the transformation signs of for the printed axes. The last two transform together like . The squared coefficients sum to one in each case, and their pairwise inner products vanish. Any orthogonal rotation of the two combinations is an equally valid basis for that degenerate subspace.
Figure 1.
Original coefficient and phase maps for the four square-array symmetry orbitals
. Details.

New to topics? Read the docs here!