Fundamental Symmetry Aspects of Molecular Chirality

Barron, Laurence D.

doi:10.1007/978-94-011-3698-3_1

Cited by 32 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 119 publications

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“…4 Likewise Curie's idea about collinear electric and magnetic fields, together with others involving spinning vessels, gravitational fields, and so on. All this encouraged me in the early 1980s to apply fundamental symmetry arguments to the problem, [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] which led me to propose a new definition of chirality. Chirality in a stationary system such as a helix or a chiral molecule is easy to recognize, but when motion is an essential ingredient, two types of enantiomorphism must be distinguished:…”

Section: Natural and Magnetic Optical Activitymentioning

confidence: 99%

From Cosmic Chirality to Protein Structure: Lord Kelvin's Legacy

Barron

2012

Chirality

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A selection of my work on chirality is sketched in two distinct parts of this lecture. Symmetry and Chirality explains how the discrete symmetries of parity P, time reversal T, and charge conjugation C may be used to characterize the properties of chiral systems. The concepts of true chirality (time-invariant enantiomorphism) and false chirality (time-noninvariant enantiomorphism) that emerge provide an extension of Lord Kelvin's original definition of chirality to situations where motion is an essential ingredient thereby clarifying, inter alia, the nature of physical influences able to induce absolute enantioselection. Consideration of symmetry violations reveals that strict enantiomers (exactly degenerate) are interconverted by the combined CP operation. Raman optical activity surveys work, from first observation to current applications, on a new chiroptical spectroscopy that measures vibrational optical activity via Raman scattering of circularly polarized light. Raman optical activity provides incisive information ranging from absolute configuration and complete solution structure of smaller chiral molecules and oligomers to protein and nucleic acid structure of intact viruses.

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Section: Natural and Magnetic Optical Activitymentioning

confidence: 99%

From Cosmic Chirality to Protein Structure: Lord Kelvin's Legacy

Barron

2012

Chirality

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“…Zocher and Török had previously anticipated De Gennes' introduction of time reversal into the problem by calling Curie's arrangement of electric and magnetic fields a time-asymmetric enantiomorphism [24]. This, together with De Gennes' insight, stimulated a series of papers in the early 1980s by the present author, who introduced the concept of 'true' and 'false' chirality to emphasize the distinction between time-invariant and time-noninvariant enantiomorphism, respectively [21,22,[25][26][27][28]. Chirality in a stationary system such as a helix or a chiral molecule is easy to recognize.…”

Section: Curie's Idea Has False Chiralitymentioning

confidence: 91%

False Chirality, Absolute Enantioselection and CP Violation: Pierre Curie’s Legacy

Barron

2020

Magnetochemistry

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The 1884 suggestion of Pierre Curie (1859–1906) that the type of dissymmetry shown by collinear electric and magnetic fields may induce an enantiomeric excess, in a chemical reaction that would otherwise produce a racemic mixture, is explored in the context of fundamental symmetry arguments. Curie’s arrangement exhibits false chirality (time-noninvariant enantiomorphism), and so it may not induce absolute enantioselection (ae) in a process that has reached thermodynamic equilibrium, since it does not lift the degeneracy of chiral enantiomers. However, it may do so in far-from-equilibrium processes via a breakdown in microscopic reversibility analogous to that observed in elementary particle processes under the influence of CP violation, the associated force possessing false chirality with respect to CP enantiomorphism. In contrast, an influence like circularly polarized light exhibiting true chirality (time-invariant enantiomorphism) lifts the degeneracy of enantiomers, and so may induce ae in all circumstances. Although to date, ae has not been observed under the influence of Curie’s arrangement of collinear electric and magnetic fields, it is argued that two different experiments have now demonstrated ae under a falsely chiral influence in systems far from equilibrium, namely in a spinning sample under a gravitational field, and in the separation of enantiomers at a ferromagnetic surface.

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“…Specifically, in a different but related context, Barron applied fundamental symmetry arguments to tackle the problem of the nature of physical fields and forces that were able to induce absolute asymmetric synthesis . During his tour de force , Barron coined the terms true and false chirality , which helped to clarify the situation with the following definitions: true chirality is exhibited by systems that exist in two distinct enantiomeric states that are interconverted by space inversion but not by time (T) reversal combined with any proper spatial rotation. false chirality is exhibited by systems that exist in two distinct enantiomeric states that are interconverted by time reversal as well as space inversion.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Chirality and Gravitational Parity Violation

Bargueño

2015

Chirality

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In this review, parity-violating gravitational potentials are presented as possible sources of both true and false chirality. In particular, whereas phenomenological long-range spin-dependent gravitational potentials contain both truly and falsely chiral terms, it is shown that there are models that extend general relativity including also coupling of fermionic degrees of freedom to gravity in the presence of torsion, which give place to short-range truly chiral interactions similar to that usually considered in molecular physics. Physical mechanisms which give place to gravitational parity violation together with the expected size of the effects and their experimental constraints are discussed. Finally, the possible role of parity-violating gravity in the origin of homochirality and a road map for future research works in quantum chemistry is presented.

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Fundamental Symmetry Aspects of Molecular Chirality

Cited by 32 publications

References 119 publications

From Cosmic Chirality to Protein Structure: Lord Kelvin's Legacy

From Cosmic Chirality to Protein Structure: Lord Kelvin's Legacy

False Chirality, Absolute Enantioselection and CP Violation: Pierre Curie’s Legacy

Chirality and Gravitational Parity Violation

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