Subject: HIGHER-ORDER SADDLE POINTS

From: Errol Lewars <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 02 Jan 2000 14:41:31 -0500

2000 Jan 02
Happy New Year!

Hello,

We know that a 1st-order saddle point (a transition state, with 1
imaginary frequency) connects two zero-order stationary points (two
minima, each with 0 imag freqs).

Question:
(1) What does an nth-order saddle point connect? Does it always join
2n  	    stationary points, each of order (n-1)?
(2) Understandably, chemists concentrate overwhelmingly on minima and
transition states. But has anyone ever shown much interest in
higher-order saddle points?

Thanks

E. Lewars
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