Could dark matter or neutrinos discriminate between the enantiomers of a chiral molecule?

TL;DR

This paper investigates whether dark matter or neutrinos could influence the energy difference between chiral molecule enantiomers, concluding dark matter effects are negligible while neutrinos might have a measurable impact.

Contribution

It provides a quantitative estimate of dark matter and neutrino effects on molecular chirality, highlighting neutrinos as a potential factor in biological homochirality.

Findings

Dark matter effects on enantiomer discrimination are negligible.

Cosmological neutrinos could produce an energy difference comparable to known electroweak interactions.

Dark matter can be dismissed as a cause of biological homochirality.

Abstract

We examine the effect of cold dark matter on the discrimination between the two enantiomers of a chiral molecule. We estimate the energy difference between the two enantiomers due to the interaction between fermionic WIMPs (weak interacting massive particles) and molecular electrons on the basis that electrons have opposite helicities in opposite enantiomers. It is found that this energy difference is completely negligible. Dark matter could then be discarded as an inductor of chiroselection between enantiomers and then of biological homochirality. However, the effect of cosmological neutrinos, revisited with the currently accepted neutrino density, would reach, in the most favorable case, an upper bound of the same order of magnitude as the energy difference obtained from the well known electroweak electron-nucleus interaction in some molecules.