New possible manifestations of parity violation in forbidden magnetic transitions : chiral absorption of plane polarized light and circular dichroism in crossed transverse dc electric and magnetic fields

Abstract

In this paper, we shall present new approaches to the problem of finding a parity violation in forbidden magnetic transitions of heavy atoms. The basic principle is the observation of an interference between the electric dipole amplitude induced by the parity violating neutral currents interaction and the stark induced electric dipole amplitude in nS → n' S radiative transitions. The new features of the experiments discussed here is that they have to be performed in a d.c. magnetic field, of the order of one kilogauss, crossed with the d.c. electric field. The experiments involve the measurement of the absorption cross-section of plane or circularly polarized light. The left-right asymmetries are discussed in some simple cases where the physical nature of the effect is clearly exhibited; the results of numerical computations corresponding to realistic experimental conditions are presented. The parity violating signals have in all cases a well defined signature. The experiments proposed in this paper constitute interesting alternatives to experiments now under way, which are performed in zero magnetic d.c. field