Observation of a large atomic parity violation effect in ytterbium.
Atomic parity violation has been observed in the 6s(2 1)S(0)-->5d6s(3)D(1) 408-nm forbidden transition of ytterbium. The parity-violating amplitude is found to be 2 orders of magnitude larger than in cesium, where the most precise experiments to date have been performed. This is in accordance with theoretical predictions and constitutes the largest atomic parity-violating amplitude yet observed. This also opens the way to future measurements of neutron distributions and anapole moments by comparing parity-violating amplitudes for various isotopes and hyperfine components of the transition.
Department of Physics, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720-7300, USA. tsigutkin@berkley.edu
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