Optical Activity, Hund Paradox, and Molecular Parity Violation

TL;DR

This paper investigates how molecular parity violation influences optical activity stability in chiral molecules, showing that it can stabilize chiral states by breaking potential symmetry.

Contribution

It introduces a dynamical approach to analyze the impact of parity violation on optical activity stability in a double-well potential model.

Findings

Parity violation breaks potential symmetry

Chiral states can be stabilized by parity violation

Dynamical analysis reveals stabilization mechanisms

Abstract

We study the problem of stability of optical activity, also known as Hund paradox, in a two-dimensional approximation of a double-well potential. We discuss how the introduction of molecular parity violation breaks the symmetry of the potential. By using a dynamical approach, we show how this effect modifies the dynamics and can stabilize the chiral states for some molecules.