Polarized muons and the origin of biological homochirality

Abstract

While biologists have not yet reached a consensus on the definition of life, homochirality - the specific molecular handedness of biomolecules - is a phenomenon only produced by life. The unraveling of its origin requires interdisciplinary research, by exploring fundamental physics, chemistry, astrophysics and biology. Here, we consider the origin of biological homochirality in the context of astrophysics and particle physics. The weak force, one of the fundamental forces operating in nature, is parity-violating. On Earth, at ground level, most of our cosmic radiation dose comes from polarized muons formed in a decay involving the weak force. We discuss how the magnetic polarization is transmitted in cosmic showers within several different environments which are prime targets in the search for the origin of life. We consider how this polarization could have induced a biological preference for one type of chirality over the other, and discuss the implications for the search of life in other worlds.

Proceedings of the ICRC 2021 PoS(ICRC2021)031

References in corpus (5)

• Extraterrestrial nucleobases in the Murchison meteorite
• Discovery of the Interstellar Chiral Molecule Propylene Oxide (CH${}_3$CHCH${}_2$O)
• The role of jet-cocoon mixing, magnetization and shock breakout in neutrino and cosmic-ray emission from short GRBs
• Biosignatures of the Earth I. Airborne spectropolarimetric detection of photosynthetic life
• Polarized radiation and the Emergence of Biological Homochirality on Earth and Beyond