2024/12/03 by Stefan Yoshi Buhmann, Buhmann, Stefan Yoshi, Andreas Hans +5
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Chemical Physics Studies #Atomic and Molecular Clusters (physics.atm-clus) #FOS: Physical sciences #Spectroscopy and Quantum Chemical Studies #Surface Chemistry and Catalysis
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2412.02377
openalex publication_date 2024/12/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
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.