For the collinear centrosymmetric arrangement, the longitudinal coordinates transform in the D infinity h molecular point group. Inversion sends , because displacement is a polar vector. Therefore
An orthonormal set of symmetry coordinates is:
CoordinateDisplacement vectorSymmetry at
Here translates the complete system, separates the molecular centres, stretches both molecules together, and lengthens one while shortening the other. Reversing every arrow changes the coordinate sign, not its physical mode.
Figure 1.
Normalized longitudinal symmetry coordinates for two collinear hydrogen molecules
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