Understanding chemical reactivity in extended systems: Exploring models of chemical softness in carbon nanotubes

Chemical reactivity towards electron transfer is captured by the Fukui function. However, this is not well defined when the system or its ions have degenerate or pseudo-degenerate ground states. In such a case, the first-order chemical response is not independent of the perturbation and the correct response has to be computed using the mathematical formalism of perturbation theory for degenerate states. Spatial pseudo-degeneracy is ubiquitous …