Abstract
It has recently been shown that the high-spin, doubly hole-doped fullerene cation C-60(2+) is likely to undergo a Jahn-Teller (JT) distortion, which reduces the molecular symmetry from I-h to D-2h. A theoretical model for the JT effect describing this situation is presented. The model includes parameters for the energy differences between molecular terms that arise from Coulomb interactions between the holes. Although the magnitudes of these parameters are not known to any degree of certainty for the C-60(2+) cation, they are likely to have an important effect. Results are given for both the static JT effect, where the motion of the system can be considered in terms of vibrations in a potential well, and the dynamic JT effect, where tunneling between equivalent wells must be taken into account.