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Chirally Sensitive Electron-Induced Molecular Breakup And The Vester-Ulbricht Hypothesis, J. M. Dreiling, Timothy J. Gay
Chirally Sensitive Electron-Induced Molecular Breakup And The Vester-Ulbricht Hypothesis, J. M. Dreiling, Timothy J. Gay
Timothy J. Gay Publications
We have studied dissociative electron attachment in sub-eV collisions between longitudinally polarized electrons and chiral bromocamphor molecules. For a given target enantiomer, the dissociative Br anion production depends on the helicity of the incident electrons, with an asymmetry that depends on the electron energy and is of order 3 × 10−4. The existence of chiral sensitivity in a well-defined molecular breakup reaction demonstrates the viability of the Vester-Ulbrict hypothesis, namely, that the longitudinal polarization of cosmic beta radiation was responsible for the origins of biological homochirality.