Cold, Controlled, Chiral Molecules
Dr. Sandra Eibenberger-Arias (Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Berlin)

Chiral molecules are ubiquitous in nature and they are of great importance in many biological and chemical processes. They are also at the center of some interesting fundamental physics questions, for example whether there is parity violation in chiral molecules, which has been long predicted but never experimentally observed.

In my presentation I will discuss important recent experimental developments targeted at the understanding and the control of cold, chiral molecules in the gas phase. I will show the microwave three-wave mixing technique where the enantiomers of a chiral molecule can be distinguished in a sensitive, non-destructive way [1]. I will also discuss enantiomer-specific population transfer, an all-coherent method to populate a chosen rotational state preferentially with one enantiomer [2]. I will further discuss recent progress in my lab in Berlin [3], where we realize increased control of chiral molecules by employing high resolution spectroscopy techniques in the UV and microwave regime [4].

[1] D. Patterson, M. Schnell, and J. Doyle, Nature 497, 475 (2013)
[2] S. Eibenberger, J. Doyle, D. Patterson, Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 123002 (2017)
[3] A. O. Hernandez-Castillo, J. Bischoff, J. H. Lee, J. Langenhan, M. Karra, G. Meijer, and S. Eibenberger-Arias, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. (2021)
[4] J. H. Lee, J. Bischoff, A. O. Hernandez-Castillo, B. Sartakov, G. Meijer, and S. Eibenberger-Arias, in preparation (2021)