Seminars Archive

Energy stabilization of chiral molecules due to the weak nuclear force

Abstract
It is shown via extended numerical tests that the ab initio calculation of a parity-violating energy term, describing interaction between weak nuclear force and spin-orbit effects, at the random-phase approximation (or coupled Hartree-Fock theory) level of accuracy, gives results which are more than one order of magnitude larger than those usually obtained by means of less accurate methods employed so far. The calculations assign higher thermodynamic stability to a series of naturally occurring enantiomeric molecules, e.g., L-alpha-amino acids (Alanine, Valine, Serine, Aspartate) and D-dyhydroglyceraldehyde, with respect to their ``unnatural`` mirror image molecules. These results can be useful to rationalize the predominance of only one enantiomeric form in terrestrial homochiral biochemistry.