Off-center impurity in alkali halides: reorientation, electric polarization and pairing to F center. II. In-plane rotation and polarizability

Because of its inherent 2-D character, the eigenvalue equation for the hindered rotation around a normal cation site of an off-center impurity nearest-neighboring an F center is the well-known Mathieu equation. We present an overview of literature data on Mathieu’s periodic functions providing exact solutions to the Li+ reorientational problem. We compare them with bottom-well approximating solutions by harmonic-oscillator functions at an effective vibrational frequency renormalized by both first- and third- order electron-mode coupling. We finally discuss the in-plane inversion polarizability of an off-center impurity assumed to form a dipole-dipole coupling with a nearby F center.