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

There has been recent interest in the possibility of using cavity confinement to
alter the rate or outcome of a chemical reaction [1,2]. This occurs in the
regime of strong coupling where a macroscopic number of molecular electronic or
vibrational transitions couple to a resonant cavity mode to produce two bright
light-matter modes (polaritons) and a number of dark states. Noteworthy is that
this can take place in the absence of external photon source i.e. an empty
cavity.

The aim of the project is to build theoretical models of chemical reactions
occurring in an optical cavity, in particular to understand the role of strong
coupling in chemical kinetics and propose experiments in which cavity catalysis
could be observed. This work will contribute to the emerging field of polariton
chemistry including the potential for novel schemes of chemical synthesis taking
place inside a cavity.

The project will make use of a new exact numerical technique for modelling open
quantum systems developed at St Andrews [3]. This technique allows for efficient
simulation of quantum systems strongly coupled to an environment and shall be
used alongside analytical techniques to model chemical reaction dynamics of
molecules in a cavity, treating the cavity modes and molecular vibrations as
strongly coupled.

References
[1] Resonant catalysis of thermally-activated chemical reactions with vibrational
polaritons Campos-Gonzalez-Angulo et al. https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.10264
[2] Tilting a ground-state reactivity landscape by vibrational strong coupling
Thomas et al. Science 363 615 (2019)
[3] Efficient non-Markovian quantum dynamics using time-evolving matrix product operators
Strathearn et al. Nature Comms. 9 3322 (2018)