A new experiment to measure parity violation in trapped chiral molecular ions
- MP Department Seminar
- Date: May 12, 2023
- Time: 09:30 AM c.t. - 10:30 AM (Local Time Germany)
- Speaker: Ass. Professor Yuval Shagam
- Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, see https://summerchemtech.com/ass-prof-yuval-schagam/
- Location: Haber Villa
- Room: Seminar Room
- Host: Department of Molecular Physics
- Contact: meijer@fhi-berlin.mpg.de

The weak force is predicted to give rise to slightly different
structures for left and right-handed chiral molecules, contrary to the
common conception that enantiomers are perfect mirror images. The
consequences of the asymmetry range from the elimination of tunnelling
between enantiomers to a possible seed of the chiral preference
exhibited in the chemistry of life. We are building a new experiment
aimed at observing weak force parity violation (PV) in molecules for the
first time. We will use the charged version of chiral molecules which
can be easily trapped providing long interrogation times. Toward our
goal we have developed a scheme that uses the principles of 3-wave
mixing to differentially extract the PV signature from a racemic sample
[1]. Molecular ions also provide a pathway to create chiral molecules
that are internally cold, populating few quantum states. I will describe
our plan to achieve this through state-selective ionization. Finally, I
will discuss our chiral molecular ion candidates as well as our plan to
detect their internal state populations with an ion trap and Velocity
Map Imaging combination. References [1] Itay Erez, Eliana Ruth Wallach
and Yuval Shagam arXiv:2206.03699 (2022)