Polarized Radiation and the Emergence of Biological Homochirality on Earth and Beyond

Abstract

Abstract It has been proposed that spin-polarized cosmic radiation can induce asymmetric changes in helical biopolymers that may account for the emergence of biological homochirality. The parity violation in the weak interaction has direct consequences on the transport of polarization in cosmic ray showers. In this paper, we show that muons retain their polarization down to energies at which they can initiate enantioselective mutagenesis. Therefore, muons are most likely to succeed in establishing the connection between broken symmetries in the standard model of particle physics and that found in living organisms. We calculate the radiation doses deposited by primary and secondary cosmic rays at various prime targets for the searches of life in the solar system: Mars, Venus, Titan, icy moons and planetesimals, and discuss the implications for the enantioselective mutagenesis proposed as to be the driver of homochiralization. Earth is unusual in that spin-polarized muons dominate the cosmic radiation at its surface.