Emergence of molecular chirality due to chiral interactions in a biological environment |
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Authors: | Arash Tirandaz Farhad Taher Ghahramani Afshin Shafiee |
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Institution: | 1. Research Group on Foundations of Quantum Theory and Information, Department of Chemistry, Sharif University of Technology, P.O.Box 11365-9516, Tehran, Iran
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Abstract: | We explore the interplay between tunneling process and chiral interactions in the discrimination of chiral states for an ensemble of molecules in a biological environment. Each molecule is described by an asymmetric double-well potential and the environment is modeled as a bath of harmonic oscillators. We carefully analyze different time-scales appearing in the resulting master equation at both weak- and strong-coupling limits. The corresponding results are accompanied by a set of coupled differential equations characterizing optical activity of the molecules. We show that, at the weak-coupling limit, chiral interactions prohibit the coherent racemization induced by decoherence effects and thus preserve the initial chiral state. At the strong-coupling limit, considering the memory effects of the environment, Markovian behavior is observed at long times. |
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Keywords: | Biomolecular homochirality Chiral interactions Decoherence theory |
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