Chiral symmetry breaking in complex chemical systems during formation of life on earth

Abstract

The chiral symmetry in complex chemical systems containing many amino acids and characterized by many similar chemical reactions (a situation corresponding to the formation of life on Earth) is considered. It is shown that effective averaging over similar reaction channels may lead to very weak effective enantioselectivity, which does not allow for chiral symmetry breaking in most known models. A class of models with simple and catalytic synthesis of one amino acid, the formation of peptides with a length reaching three, and the precipitation of one insoluble pair of materials is analyzed. It is proven that chiral symmetry breaking may occur in one possible version from an insoluble pair of materials even in the complete absence of catalytic synthesis of amino acid. It is shown that the presence of weakly enantioselective catalytic synthesis in a model significantly increases the number of possible versions in which chiral symmetry breaks.