Broadening and Shifting of the Methanol 119 µm Gain Line of Linear and Circular Polarization by Collision with Chiral Molecules
Authors: J.S. Bakos, G. Djotyan, Zsuzsa Sörlei, J. Szigeti, D.K. Mansfield, and J. Sárközi
Date of PPPL Report: June 2000
Published in: Phys. Rev. A 63 012507 (January 2001) (5 pages) .
Evidence of circular dichroism has been observed in the spectral properties of a gas of left-right symmetric molecules. This dichroism comes about as the result of collisions of the symmetric molecules with left-right asymmetric molecules introduced as a buffer gas. In this sense, the dichroism can be said to have been transferred from the chiral buffer molecules to the symmetric, non-chiral molecules of the background vapor. This transferred dichroism appears as broadening in the gain line of the symmetric molecule which is asymmetric with respect to the right or left handedness of a circularly polarized probe. The broadening of the 119 µm line of the methanol molecule was observed using infrared-far infrared double resonance spectroscopy.