Electric dipole moments of superheavy elements - A case study on copernicium

TL;DR

This study uses advanced quantum calculations to determine the electric dipole moments of superheavy element copernicium, revealing significantly larger values than lighter homologs, indicating potential for EDM experimental searches.

Contribution

First calculation of EDM enhancement factors for copernicium using MCDHF method, showing their exponential increase with atomic number along group 12.

Findings

EDM enhancement factors of Cn are about ten times larger than Hg.

Enhancement factors increase exponentially with atomic number Z.

Superheavy elements with longer half-lives are promising for EDM experiments.

Abstract

The multiconfiguration Dirac-Hartree-Fock (MCDHF) method was employed to calculate atomic electric dipole moments (EDM) of the superheavy element copernicium (Cn, $Z=112$). The EDM enhancement factors of Cn, here calculated for the first time, are about one order of magnitude larger than those of Hg. The exponential dependence of enhancement factors on atomic number $Z$ along group 12 of the periodic table was derived from the EDMs of the entire homolog series, $^{69}_{30}$Zn, $^{111}_{\phantom{1}48}$Cd, $^{199}_{\phantom{1}80}$Hg, $^{285}_{112}$Cn, and $^{482}_{162}$Uhb. These results show that superheavy elements with sufficiently large half-lives are good candidates for EDM searches.