Effect of molecular rotation on enantioseparation

TL;DR

This paper investigates how molecular rotation influences laser-based enantioseparation techniques, revealing that rotational dynamics significantly affect the effectiveness of chirality-dependent forces used for separating enantiomers.

Contribution

It demonstrates that molecular rotation alters the adiabatic potentials, challenging previous assumptions and impacting the feasibility of laser-induced enantioseparation methods.

Findings

Rotational dynamics negate the adiabatic dressed state potentials.

Molecular orientation affects the chirality-dependent forces.

Enantioseparation efficiency is reduced when rotation is considered.

Abstract

Recently, several laser schemes have been proposed to separate racemic mixtures of enantiomers by splitting a molecular beam into subbeams consisting of molecules of definite chirality [Y. Li, C. Bruder, and C. P. Sun, Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 130403 (2007); X. Li and M. Shapiro, J. Chem. Phys. 132, 194315 (2010)]. These ideas rely on laser-induced effective gauge potentials in an adiabatic basis which lead to a chirality dependent force on the center-of-mass. However, the effect of molecular rotation has been neglected in these studies. Accounting for the full molecular quantum state we find that the potentials from the adiabatic dressed state approach cannot be recovered once the molecular orientation dynamics is included, even in the rotational ground state. This affects substantially the ability to perform enantioseparation in the above mentioned setups.