Phonon dispersion relations and soft modes of 4? carbon nanotubes

The phonon dispersion relations of three kinds of 4? carbon nanotubes are calculated by using the density functional perturbation theory. It is found that the frequencies of some phonon modes are very sensitive to the smearing width used in the calculations, and eventually become negative at low electronic temperature. Moreover, two kinds of soft modes are identified for the (5,0) tube which are quite different from those reported previously. Our results suggest that the (5,0) tube remains metallic at very low temperature, instead of the metallic-semiconducting transition claimed before.