Photoelectron circular dichroism of a chiral molecule induced by resonant interatomic Coulombic decay from an antenna atom

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how a nonchiral atom can induce photoelectron circular dichroism in a nearby chiral molecule through resonant interatomic Coulombic decay, revealing a distance-dependent asymmetry.

Contribution

It introduces a novel mechanism where a nonchiral atom acts as an antenna to generate circular dichroism in a chiral molecule via resonant energy transfer.

Findings

Asymptotic expression for distance-dependent chiral asymmetry

Reversal of chiral asymmetry in nonretarded limit

Analytic model based on retarded dipole--dipole interaction

Abstract

We show that a nonchiral atom can act as an antenna to induce a photoelectron circular dichroism in a nearby chiral molecule in a three-step process: The donor atom (antenna) is initially resonantly excited by circularly polarized radiation. It then transfers its excess energy to the acceptor molecule by means of resonant interatomic Coulombic decay. The latter finally absorbs the energy and emits an electron which exhibits the aforementioned circular dichroism in its angular distribution. We study the process on the basis of the retarded dipole--dipole interaction and report an asymptotic analytic expression for the distance-dependent chiral asymmetry of the photoelectron as induced by resonant interatomic Coulombic decay for random line-of-sight and acceptor orientations. In the nonretarded limit, the predicted chiral asymmetry is reversed as compared to that of a direct photoelectron circular dichroism of the molecule.