Chiral Casimir-Polder Force from Chiral Anomaly in Weyl Semimetals
- 28 October 2026
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Physical Society (APS) in Physical Review Letters
- Vol. 137 (18) , 186904
Abstract
We propose a novel chiral-discriminatory Casimir-Polder interaction between chiral molecules and Weyl semimetals, originating from the chiral anomaly. This interaction is uniquely governed by the molecule's electric dipole moment, enabling chiral discrimination even when the optical rotatory strength of the molecule vanishes. For the chiral molecule ${\mathrm{C}}_{20}{\mathrm{H}}_{16}\mathrm{ClNOS}$ (characterized by strong spin-orbit coupling) and a rationally tailored Weyl semimetal, first-principles calculations predict a significantly enhanced chiral-discriminatory Casimir-Polder force compared to interactions between chiral molecule dimethyl disulphide and chiral metamaterial. We further propose a Stern-Gerlach-type spatial deflection measurement to isolate this chiral-specific interaction.
Funding Information
- National Natural Science Foundation of China (12488101)
- National Natural Science Foundation of China (12174101)
- Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2026SL013)
This publication has 56 references indexed in Scilit:
- Software Update: The ORCA Program System—Version 6.0WIREs Computational Molecular Science, 2025
- Perturbative light–matter interactions; from first principles to inverse designPhysics Reports, 2023
- Thermoelectric signature of the chiral anomaly in Cd3As2Nature Communications, 2016
- Negative magnetoresistance without well-defined chirality in the Weyl semimetal TaPNature Communications, 2016
- Chiral magnetic effect in ZrTe5Nature Physics, 2016
- Modifying Chemical Landscapes by Coupling to Vacuum FieldsAngewandte Chemie International Edition, 2012
- Quantum Optics1997
- Ab Initio Calculation of Vibrational Absorption and Circular Dichroism Spectra Using Density Functional Force FieldsThe Journal of Physical Chemistry, 1994
- Time-dependent decay of surface-plasmon-coupled molecular fluorescenceChemical Physics Letters, 1980
- A PCAC puzzle: π0→γγ in the σ-modelIl Nuovo Cimento A (1971-1996), 1969