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Emergence of molecular chirality due to chiral interactions in a biological environment

Tirandaz, A ; Sharif University of Technology

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  1. Type of Document: Article
  2. DOI: 10.1007/s10867-014-9356-x
  3. Abstract:
  4. We explore the interplay between tunneling process and chiral interactions in the discrimination of chiral states for an ensemble of molecules in a biological environment. Each molecule is described by an asymmetric double-well potential and the environment is modeled as a bath of harmonic oscillators. We carefully analyze different time-scales appearing in the resulting master equation at both weak- and strong-coupling limits. The corresponding results are accompanied by a set of coupled differential equations characterizing optical activity of the molecules. We show that, at the weak-coupling limit, chiral interactions prohibit the coherent racemization induced by decoherence effects and thus preserve the initial chiral state. At the strong-coupling limit, considering the memory effects of the environment, Markovian behavior is observed at long times
  5. Keywords:
  6. Biomolecular homochirality ; Decoherence theory ; Born approximation ; Born Markov master equation ; Chiral interaction ; Chirality ; Chromatophore ; Controlled study ; Decoherence program ; Dynamics ; General Spin Boson model ; High temperature ; Markov approximation ; Mathematical model ; Mathematical parameters ; Molecular interaction ; Molecule ; Optical rotation ; Oscillation ; Priority journal ; Racemization ; Strong coupling limit ; Weak coupling limit ; Chemical structure ; Light related phenomena ; Stereoisomerism ; Biology ; Models, Molecular ; Optical Processes
  7. Source: Journal of Biological Physics ; Vol. 40, issue. 4 , Jul , 2014 , p. 369-386
  8. URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24996546