  In this paper the influence of adsorbed hydrogen on the behavior of gold
nanojunctions is investigated. It is found, that the hydrogen environment has a
strong effect on the conductance of atomic-sized gold junctions, which is
markedly reflected by the growth of an additional peak in the conductance
histogram at 0.5 quantum unit, 2e^2/h. The statistical analysis of the
conductance traces implies that the new peak arises due to the
hydrogen-assisted distortion of atomic gold chains.
