Discrimination in the dispersion interaction between odd-electron chiral molecules

Abstract

The time-odd part of the molecular optical activity tensor is shown to provide new contributions to the discriminating dispersion interaction between chiral molecules in degenerate states. Detailed calculations on a hypothetical odd-electron chiral transition metal complex of O* symmetry indicate that the new discriminating contributions could be within an order of magnitude of the conventional discriminating contributions. In the near zone, the new contributions have the usual R ^-6 dependence, but in the wave zone they depend on R ^-7, unlike the conventional discriminating contributions which depend on R ^-9.