Paper "Tomographic imaging of molecular
orbitals" by J. Itatani. in Nature challenges common QM (quantum
mechanics) interpretation of orbitals as pure mathematical constructs.
Authors goes as far as to say that they experimentally measured HOMO
(highest occupied molecular orbital). Is that possible indeed or is it
just a wrong interpretation of the experiment?
The paper could be found at:
http://spectroscopy.mps.ohio-state.edu/institute/2007/corkum/nature_Tomography.pdf
I appreciate your comments on this issue.
You can vote on this question here:
http://www.webqc.org/chemicalforum/viewtopic.php?t=466
[UPDATE] I've published critical review of this paper in another post:
http://vitalii.chemicalblogs.com/2_computational_chemistry/archive/480_review_are_orbitals_real.html
Trackback URL: http://www.chemicalblogs.com/trackback.php?id=335




Orbitals are used as a basis to construct wavefunction.
Can one measure a basis?
Of course not!
It is similar to the claim that one has made a tomography of the X axis.