Parity-violating interactions of cosmic fields with atoms, molecules, and nuclei: Concepts and calculations for laboratory searches and extracting limits

Abstract

We propose methods and present calculations that can be used to search for evidence of cosmic fields by investigating the parity-violating effects, including parity nonconservation amplitudes and electric dipole moments, that they induce in atoms. The results are used to constrain important fundamental parameters describing the strength of the interaction of various cosmic fields with electrons, protons, and neutrons. Candidates for such fields are dark matter (including axions) and dark energy, as well as several more exotic sources described by standard-model extensions. Existing parity nonconservation experiments in Cs, Dy, Yb, and Tl are combined with our calculations to directly place limits on the interaction strength between the temporal component, b_0, of a static pseudovector cosmic field and the atomic electrons, with the most stringent limit of |b_0^e| < 7*10^(-15) GeV, in the laboratory frame of reference, coming from Dy. From a measurement of the nuclear anapole moment of Cs, and a limit on its value for Tl, we also extract limits on the interaction strength between the temporal component of this cosmic field, as well as a related tensor cosmic-field component d_00, with protons and neutrons. The most stringent limits of |b_0^p| < 4*10^(-8) GeV and |d_00^p| < 5*10^(-8) for protons, and |b_0^n| < 2*10^(-7) GeV and |d_00^n| < 2*10^(-7) for neutrons (in the laboratory frame) come from the results using Cs. Axions may induce oscillating P- and T-violating effects in atoms and molecules through the generation of oscillating nuclear magnetic quadrupole and Schiff moments, which arise from P- and T-odd intranuclear forces and from the electric dipole moments of constituent nucleons. Nuclear-spin-independent parity nonconservation effects may be enhanced in diatomic molecules possessing close pairs of opposite-parity levels in the presence of time-dependent interactions.

18 pages, 3 figures, 4 tables, Editor's Suggestion

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• LIGO: The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory
• Improved limit on the permanent electric dipole moment of 199Hg
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• New limit on Lorentz and CPT-violating neutron spin interactions
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• Using Molecules to Measure Nuclear Spin-Dependent Parity Violation
• New CP-violation and preferred-frame tests with polarized electrons
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Cited by in corpus (20)

• Searching for dark matter and variation of fundamental constants with laser and maser interferometry
• Search for axion-like dark matter through nuclear spin precession in electric and magnetic fields
• Measuring the stability of fundamental constants with a network of clocks
• Nuclear spin-dependent interactions: Searches for WIMP, Axion and Topological Defect Dark Matter, and Tests of Fundamental Symmetries
• A relativistic quantum oscillator subject to a Coulomb-type potential induced by effects of the violation of the Lorentz symmetry
• Probing low-mass vector bosons with parity nonconservation and nuclear anapole moment measurements in atoms and molecules
• On a relativistic scalar particle subject to a Coulomb-type potential given by Lorentz symmetry breaking effects
• Measuring molecular parity nonconservation using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy
• Spin-dependent exotic interactions
• Chiral molecules as sensitive probes for direct detection of $\mathcal{P}$-odd cosmic fields
• Searches for beyond-Riemann gravity
• A class of invisible axion models with FCNCs at tree level
• New Atomic probes for Dark Matter detection: Axions, Axion-like particles and Topological Defects
• Parity nonconserving interactions of electrons in chiral molecules with cosmic fields
• Using parity-nonconserving spin-spin coupling to measure the Tl nuclear anapole moment in a TlF molecular beam
• Nonperturbative Lorentz Violation and Field Quantization
• Physical interpretation of large Lorentz violation via Weyl semimetals
• An Upper Bound on the Strongly Forbidden $6S_{1/2}\leftrightarrow 5D_{3/2}$ Magnetic Dipole Transition Moment in {Ba}${}^{+}$
• Atomic Observables Induced by Cosmic Fields
• Fermionic quantum gas at finite temperature within a Lorentz violating background