A NEW TWIST TO MOLECULAR CHIRALITY - INTRINSIC CHIRALITY INDEXES

We propose an intrinsic molecular chirality tensor based only on nucle ar positions. The chirality tensor gives rise to two universal chirali ty indices, the first, giving information about absolute chirality, an d the second about the anisotropy chirality, i.e., the degree of chira lity in different spatial directions. The formalism is derived using s imple models obtained from the theory of optical activity. The indices are calculated analytically for a right angled tetrahedron, and numer ically for a small selection of molecules.