Local chiral-symmetry breaking in globally centrosymmetric crystals.
A thorough tensor analysis of the Bragg-forbidden reflection (00.3)(h) in corundum systems having a global center of inversion, such as V2O3 and alpha-Fe2O3, shows that anomalous x-ray resonant diffraction can access chiral properties related to the dipole-quadrupole (E1-E2) channel via an interference with the pure quadrupole-quadrupole (E2-E2) process. This is also confirmed by independent ab initio numerical simulations. In such a way, it becomes possible to detect chiral quantities in systems where dichroic absorption techniques are ineffective.
Di Matteo
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S
INFN Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, CP 13, I-00044 Frascati, Italy.
Joly
Y
Y
Bombardi
A
A
Paolasini
L
L
de Bergevin
F
F
Natoli
C R
CR