How Long can Left and Right Handed Life Forms Coexist?

Abstract

Reaction-diffusion equations based on a polymerization model are solved to simulate the spreading of hypothetic left and right handed life forms on the Earth's surface. The equations exhibit front-like behavior as is familiar from the theory of the spreading of epidemics. It is shown that the relevant time scale for achieving global homochirality is not, however, the time scale of front propagation, but the much longer global diffusion time. The process can be sped up by turbulence and large scale flows. It is speculated that, if the deep layers of the early ocean were sufficiently quiescent, there may have been the possibility of competing early life forms with opposite handedness.

submitted to Int. J. Astrobiol., 15 pages, 10 figs. submitted to Int. J. Astrobiol., 15 pages, 10 figs

References in corpus (1)

• Homochiral growth through enantiomeric cross-inhibition

Cited by in corpus (5)

• An Extended Model for the Evolution of Prebiotic Homochirality: A Bottom-Up Approach to the Origin of Life
• Stability of racemic and chiral steady states in open and closed chemical systems
• Dissociation in a polymerization model of homochirality
• Mirror symmetry breaking as a problem in dynamical critical phenomena
• Uni-directional polymerization leading to homochirality in the RNA world