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The chirality of a molecule that has a helical, propeller, or screw-shaped geometry is called helicity [5] or helical chirality. [6] [7] The screw axis or the D n, or C n principle symmetry axis is considered to be the axis of chirality. Some sources consider helical chirality to be a type of axial chirality, [7] and some do not.
To see an in depth discussion of the two with examples, which also shows how chirality and helicity approach the same thing as speed approaches that of light, click the link entitled "Chirality and Helicity in Depth" on the same page. History of science: parity violation; Helicity, Chirality, Mass, and the Higgs (Quantum Diaries blog)
Macroscopic examples of chirality are found in the plant kingdom, the animal kingdom and all other groups of organisms. A simple example is the coiling direction of any climber plant, which can grow to form either a left- or right-handed helix. In anatomy, chirality is found in the imperfect mirror image symmetry of many kinds of animal bodies.
Consider, for example, a baseball, pitched as a gyroball, so that its spin axis is aligned with the direction of the pitch. It will have one helicity with respect to the point of view of the players on the field, but would appear to have a flipped helicity in any frame moving faster than the ball.
Quartz is an example from the mineral kingdom. Such noncentric materials are of interest for applications in nonlinear optics. In the areas of coordination chemistry and organometallic chemistry, chirality is pervasive and of practical importance.
Helicity is a pseudo-scalar quantity: it changes sign under change from a right-handed to a left-handed frame of reference; it can be considered as a measure of the handedness (or chirality) of the flow. Helicity is one of the four known integral invariants of the Euler equations; the other three are energy, momentum and angular momentum.
One scheme of nomenclature in based on envisioning the helicity defined by these groups. [11] Starting with the substituent of highest priority in the closest ring and moving along the shortest path to the substituent of highest priority in the other ring, the absolute configuration is assigned P or Δ for clockwise and M or Λ for ...
The two-component helicity eigenstates satisfy ^ (^) = (^) where are the Pauli matrices, ^ is the direction of the fermion momentum, = depending on whether spin is pointing in the same direction as ^ or opposite.