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Enantiosensitivity of spin polarization in molecular photoionization

Anton N. Artemyev1, Daniel M. Haubenreißer1, Boris M. Lagutin2, and Philipp V. Demekhin1,*

  • *Contact author: demekhin@physik.uni-kassel.de
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Phys. Rev. A 114, 013111 – Published 13 July, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/bpw5-knmg

Abstract

Angular distributions of photoelectrons with a defined spin orientation, released by the absorption of a single circularly polarized photon from randomly oriented chiral molecules, are derived and analyzed within the electric-dipole approximation. The revealed symmetry properties of the distributions support previous findings that the total spin polarization of photoelectrons is independent of the enantiomer of a chiral molecule, whereas the angular distribution of the spin polarization is enantiosensitive. Numerical applications to the achiral HI and chiral 1-iodo-2-methylbutane molecules illustrate that these analytical results also hold for multiphoton ionization processes.

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Geometric mechanisms enabling spin- and enantio-sensitive observables in one-photon ionization of chiral molecules

Philip Caesar M. Flores, Stefanos Carlström, Serguei Patchkovskii, Misha Ivanov, Andres F. Ordonez, and Olga Smirnova
Phys. Rev. A 114, 013110 (2026)

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Phys. Rev. A 114, 013111– Published 13 July, 2026
  • Received 19 March 2026
  • Accepted 25 June 2026
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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.

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