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Letter

Nature Materials 6, 198–201 (1 March 2007) | doi:10.1038/nmat1846

Breakdown of the adiabatic Born|[ndash]|Oppenheimer approximation in graphene

Simone Pisana , Michele Lazzeri , Cinzia Casiraghi , Kostya S. Novoselov , A. K. Geim , Andrea C. Ferrari & Francesco Mauri

The adiabatic Born–Oppenheimer approximation (ABO) has been the standard ansatz to describe the interaction between electrons and nuclei since the early days of quantum mechanics. ABO assumes that the lighter electrons adjust adiabatically to the motion of the heavier nuclei, remaining at any time in their instantaneous ground state.