Can molecules inside an optical cavity truly undergo different photochemistry than they would outside?

Experiments over the past decade suggest they can, attributing the effect to polaritons — collective hybrid states of light and matter that emerge when molecules strongly couple to confined photons.

The idea that such delocalized excitations could reshape local photochemical pathways is both fascinating and controversial.

In this talk, I will describe our recent efforts to test this paradigm using molecular dynamics simulations combined with experiments.

Our results suggest that polariton formation alone does not strongly modify photochemical pathways — challenging the prevailing interpretation and raising the possibility that other mechanisms underlie cavity-modified photochemistry.