Mainz 2026 – scientific programme
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MO: Fachverband Molekülphysik
MO 23: Contributions to SYLC I
MO 23.4: Talk
Thursday, March 5, 2026, 12:00–12:15, P 110
Non-Dichroic Enantio-Sensitive Chiroptical Spectroscopy — Letizia Fede1, Debobrata Rajak2, Chris Sparling3, David Ayuso4, Valérie Blanchet1, Piero Decleva5, Dominique Descamps1, Stéphane Petit1, Bernard Pons1, Yann Mairesse1, and •Andrés Ordóñez6 — 1Université de Bordeaux CNRS CEA CELIA, France — 2ELI ALPS, Hungary — 3Heriot-Watt University, UK — 4Imperial College London, UK — 5Università degli Studi di Trieste, Italy — 6Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
Chiroptical effects using circularly polarized light produce signals that change sign when switching either molecular handedness (enantiosensitivity) or light helicity (circular dichroism). Here, we break this enantiosensitive-and-dichroic paradigm by measuring a new type of chiroptical signal which is enantiosensitive but not dichroic. We photoionize chiral molecules using a strong laser field and detect the three-dimensional photoelectron momentum distribution (PMD). The Non-Dichroic, Enantio-Sensitive asymmetry is encoded in octupolar and higher multipolar terms in the PMD, appearing in multiphoton ionization with elliptical or cross-polarized two-color fields. Our simulations agree with our measurements and show that this effect extends from the two-photon to the strong-field ionization regime. The robustness of the enantiosensitivity with respect to the relative phase between the orthogonal components of the ionizing field represents an example of symmetry protection, opening unexplored opportunities for imaging ultrafast dynamics in chiral molecules, such as enantiosensitive photoelectron spectroscopy with bright squeezed vacuum states.
Keywords: Chirality; Photoionization; Multiphoton; Symmetry