Effect of molecular rotation on enantioseparation

Recently, several laser schemes have been proposed to separate racemic mixtures of enantiomers by splitting a molecular beam into subbeams consisting of molecules of definite chirality [Y. Li, C. Bruder, and C. P. Sun, Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 130403 (2007); X. Li and M. Shapiro, J. Chem. Phys. 132, 194315 (2010)]. These ideas rely on laser-induced effective gauge potentials in an adiabatic basis which lead to a chirality dependent force on the center-of-mass. However, the effect of molecular rotation has been neglected in these studies. Accounting for the full molecular quantum state we find that the potentials from the adiabatic dressed state approach cannot be recovered once the molecular orientation dynamics is included, even in the rotational ground state. This affects substantially the ability to perform enantioseparation in the above mentioned setups. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4738753]