Abstract
A phenomenological analysis of the polyene optical excitation spectra is presented. The successive absorption bands are interpreted in terms of odd and even exciton levels. An extrapolation of the experimental data on the whole polyene series gives the exciton levels of an infinite chain, and the energy gap between the filled bonding band and the empty antibonding band. The dependence of the absorption frequencies on the length of the chain allows for a calculation of the effective masses for these bands; they turn out to be small, which implies that the degree of alternation between the simple and double bonds is weak.

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