Chirality (physics)

Chirality (Greek coinage, handedness, derived from the root word χειρ ~, ch [e ] e ~ - hand ~ ), in crystallography also enantiomorphism, refers to the property of certain objects or systems, that her reflection not by rotation with the original to cover can be accommodated. So Chiral are objects that have no rotating mirror axis. However, other symmetry elements such as levels may well be present; chiral objects are thus not necessarily asymmetric.

In contrast to chiral objects are called objects without that property ( ie with rotational symmetry ) achiral.

Examples of chiral objects are the ( right) hand and the (legal) screw that can be made ​​to coincide neither with their mirror images ( left hand and left-hand screw ).

Physics

In physics this is called chirality, when the laws of two mirror-image systems are considered.

Play a special role in chiral symmetry and its breaking in high energy physics. Here you can the wave function of fermions in two parts disassemble ( odd and even ) which are multiplied at room Reflection with the eigenvalues ​​± 1. Can be clearly assigned to one of these two values ​​a system at room Reflection, it is called chirality.

For massless particles, the chirality is equal to the helicity, see also: Parity Violation of beta decay.