Magneto-chiral scattering of light: a new optical manifestation of chirality

TL;DR

This paper explores how magneto-chiral effects influence light scattering in chiral systems, introducing a new optical measure for chirality based on scattering properties, with potential applications in characterizing chiral materials.

Contribution

It provides the first calculation of magneto-chiral scattering cross sections and introduces a pseudoscalar measure of chirality derived from scattering data.

Findings

Scattering cross sections are proportional to pseudoscalar quantities.

The new measure g effectively quantifies the degree of optical chirality.

Comparison with existing measures shows its potential advantages.

Abstract

We have investigated multiple scattering of light in systems subject to magneto-chiral (MC) effects. Our medium consists of magneto-optically active dipoles placed in a chiral geometry under the influence of an external magnetic field. We have calculated, for the first time, the total and the differential scattering MC cross sections of this system, explicitely showing that they are proportional to pseudoscalar quantities. This provides a new optical measure for the degree of chirality, a pseudoscalar g, of an arbitrary geometrical configuration of scatterers based on its scattering properties. We have calculated g for some simple chiral systems and we have even used it to probe the degree of optical chirality of random systems. Finally, we have compared $g$ with other recently defined chiral measures in literature.