Molecular Parity Nonconservation in Nuclear Spin Couplings

TL;DR

This paper investigates the theoretical possibility of detecting nuclear-spin-dependent parity nonconservation in molecules through zero-field NMR, proposing an experiment to observe such effects using current magnetometry technology.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of parity nonconserving nuclear spin-spin coupling in molecules and proposes a feasible experimental detection method.

Findings

Estimated magnitude of parity nonconserving coupling including relativistic effects

Proposed an experiment using zero-field NMR to detect the coupling

Simulated signals for H-19F within current detection limits

Abstract

The weak interaction does not conserve parity, which is apparent in many nuclear and atomic phenomena. However, thus far, parity nonconservation has not been observed in molecules. Here we consider nuclear-spin-dependent parity nonconserving contributions to the molecular Hamiltonian. These contributions give rise to a parity nonconserving indirect nuclear spin-spin coupling which can be distinguished from parity conserving interactions in molecules of appropriate symmetry, including diatomic molecules. We estimate the magnitude of the coupling, taking into account relativistic corrections. Finally, we propose and simulate an experiment to detect the parity nonconserving coupling using liquid- or gas-state zero-field nuclear magnetic resonance of electrically oriented molecules and show that $^{1}$H$^{19}$F should give signals within the detection limits of current atomic vapor-cell magnetometers.