Multidisciplinarity for Homochirality

• Raphaël Plasson (Nordita)

Room: Nordita

When “Left” and “Right” cannot coexist: chiral purity by thermodynamic-kinetic feedback near equilibrium. Room: Nordita Two populations of chiral crystals of "left" and "right" hand cannot coexist in solution: one of the chiral populations disappears in an irreversible autocatalytic process that nurtures the other one. Final and complete chiral purity seems to be an inexorable fate in our systems in the course of the common process of growth-dissolution. This unexpected chiral symmetry breaking can be explained by the feedback between the thermodynamic control of dissolution and the kinetics of the growth process near equilibrium. We establish this “thermodynamic-kinetic feedback near equilibrium” as a new mechanism to achieve complete chiral purity in solid state from a previously solid racemic medium. This mechanism can operate in solutions of chiral biomolecules and could have played a key role in the origin of biochirality