Cavity catalysis: using the quantum vacuum to change a chemical reaction

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There has been recent interest in the possibility of using cavity confinement toalter the rate or outcome of a chemical reaction [1,2]. This occurs in theregime of strong coupling where a macroscopic number of molecular electronic orvibrational transitions couple to a resonant cavity mode to produce two brightlight-matter modes (polaritons) and a number of dark states. Noteworthy is thatthis can take place in the absence of external photon source i.e. an emptycavity. The aim of the project is to build theoretical models of chemical reactionsoccurring in an optical cavity, in particular to understand the role of strongcoupling in chemical kinetics and propose experiments in which cavity catalysiscould be observed. This work will contribute to the emerging field of polaritonchemistry including the potential for novel schemes of chemical synthesis takingplace inside a cavity. The project will make use of a new exact numerical technique for modelling openquantum systems developed at St Andrews [3]. This technique allows for efficientsimulation of quantum systems strongly coupled to an environment and shall beused alongside analytical techniques to model chemical reaction dynamics ofmolecules in a cavity, treating the cavity modes and molecular vibrations asstrongly coupled.References[1] Resonant catalysis of thermally-activated chemical reactions with vibrationalpolaritons Campos-Gonzalez-Angulo et al. https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.10264[2] Tilting a ground-state reactivity landscape by vibrational strong couplingThomas et al. Science 363 615 (2019)[3] Efficient non-Markovian quantum dynamics using time-evolving matrix product operatorsStrathearn et al. Nature Comms. 9 3322 (2018)