A Stern-Gerlach separator of chiral enantiomers based on the Casimir-Polder potential

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel method to separate chiral enantiomers using a planar cavity with chiral mirrors, exploiting parity violation in the Casimir-Polder potential to achieve differential deflection of enantiomers.

Contribution

It presents a new experimental approach for enantiomer separation based on chiral Casimir-Polder interactions, offering insights into fundamental quantum effects.

Findings

Enantiomers are deflected differently in the proposed setup.

The method provides an alternative to traditional separation techniques.

It sheds light on the chiral dependence of the Casimir-Polder potential.

Abstract

We propose a method to separate enantiomers using parity violation in the Casimir-Polder potential between chiral mirrors and chiral molecules. The proposed setup involves a molecular beam composed of chiral molecules passing through a planar cavity consisting of two chiral mirrors. Enantiomers of opposite handedness are deflected differently due to a chiral dependence of the Casimir-Polder potential resulting in the separation of the enantiomers. Our setup provides an alternative experimental tool for enantiomer separation, as well as shedding light on the fundamental properties of the Casimir-Polder potential.