Theory of the angular distribution of photoelectrons ejected from optically active molecules and molecular negative ions

Abstract

It is shown that the angular distribution of photoelectrons ejected on absorption of left or right circularly polarized light by a mixture of randomly oriented dextrorotatory and levorotatory optical isomers behaves as $A\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}Bcos\ensuremath{\theta}+C{cos}^{2}\ensuremath{\theta}$, where $\ensuremath{\theta}$ is the angle between the photoelectron momentum and photon direction of incidence and $\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{} Bcos\ensuremath{\theta}$ is introduced by the presence of unequal numbers of each isomer. All coefficients of ${cos}^{n}\ensuremath{\theta}$ are of order $\ensuremath{\alpha}$, and analysis shows that $B$ can be as large as $A$ and $C$.