QUANTUM STATISTICAL-MECHANICAL THEORY OF OPTICAL ACTIVITY

The expression for the electric current density induced in a system by an incident polarized beam is obtained on the basis of quantum statistical mechanical theory of linear response. It is expressed as a sum of time and space derivatives of the electric polarization and quadripole moment density and of the magnetization. In the case of the solution averaging over whole molecular orientations are applied. By solving the Maxwell equations with substitution of the averaged current density, what sort of polarized beam can travel through the solution is investigated. In the solution of randomly-oriented molecules the contribution from the quadripole moment density vanishes and the usual theory for the solution is attained. In the uniaxially symmetric case of molecular-orientation probability a linearly polarized beam travelling in the direction of the symmetry axis exhibits the optical rotation and circular dichroism, where the quadripole moment density contributes to the phenomena. © 1969, THE PHYSICAL SOCIETY OF JAPAN. All rights reserved.