Optical Rotatory Power in a Classical One-Electron Model

Abstract

According to Kuhn, in a classical treatment of Drude's one-particle model, an electron constrained to move along a helix exhibits no optical activity. On the other hand, Condon, Altar, and Eyring showed that a quantum-mechanical one-particle model, an electron confined in a twisted anisotropic harmonic-oscillator well, possesses optical activity even in the classical limit. We therefore re-examined Kuhn's analysis and found that while the Drude model does not have the usual kind of optical activity, it does exhibit rotatory power which is proportional to the intensity of the incident light for low intensities. This effect has a simple physical interpretation.