Time-Dependent Extension of Grimme's Continuous Chirality Measure for Electronic Chirality Flips in Femto- and...

Grimme's Continuous Chirality Measure ( $$ ) was developed for comparisons of the chirality of the electronic wave functions of molecules, typically in their ground states. For example, $$ , $$ and $$ for alanine, hydrogen-peroxide, and for achiral molecules, respectively. Well-designed laser pulses can excite achiral molecules from the electronic ground state to time-dependent chiral superposition states, with chirality flips in the femto- or even attosecond (fs or as) time domains. Here we provide a time-dependent extension $$ of Grimme's $$ for trailing the electronic chirality flips. As examples, we consider two laser driven electronic wavefunctions which represent flips between opposite electronic enantiomers of oriented NaK within $$ and $$ . The corresponding $$ vary respectively from $$ or from $$ to $$ , and back.