Photon-photon polarization correlations as a tool for studying parity non-conservation in heliumlike Uranium

TL;DR

This paper proposes using photon-photon polarization correlations to measure parity non-conservation effects in heliumlike Uranium by analyzing the polarization of photons emitted during two-photon decay of nearly degenerate states.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method to detect parity non-conservation in heavy ions through polarization measurements of emitted photons.

Findings

Potential to measure mixing parameters between nearly degenerate states

Enhanced sensitivity to weak interactions in heavy ions

Feasibility of experimental polarization correlation analysis

Abstract

Due to electron-nucleus weak interaction, atomic bound states with different parities turn out to be mixed. We discuss a prospect for measuring the mixing parameter between the nearly degenerate metastable states 1s_{1/2} 2s_{1/2} : J = 0 and 1s_{1/2} 2p_{1/2} : J = 0 in heliumlike Uranium. Our analysis is based on the polarization properties of the photons emitted in the two-photon decays of such states.