Nature of chemical bond and EDM effects in molecular ions $\mathrm{HBr}^{+}$ and $\mathrm{HI}^{+}$

ORAL

Abstract

Heavy polar molecules offer a great sensitivity to the electron Electric Dipole Moment(EDM). To guide emerging searches for EDMs with molecular ions, we estimate the EDM-induced energy corrections for hydrogen halide ions $\mathrm{HBr}^{+}$ and $\mathrm{HI}^{+}$ in their respective ground $X\,^2\!\Pi_{3/2}$ states. We find that the energy corrections due to EDM for the two ions differ by an unexpectedly large factor of fifteen. We demonstrate that a major part of this enhancement is due to a dissimilarity in the nature of the chemical bond for the two ions: the bond that is nearly of ionic character in $\mathrm{HBr}^{+}$ exhibits predominantly covalent nature in $\mathrm{HI}^{+}$. We conclude that because of this enhancement the HI$^+$ ion may be a potentially competitive candidate for the EDM search.

*supported by NSF and NIST

Authors

  • Boris Ravaine

  • Sergey Porsev

  • Andrei Derevianko

    • Physics Department, University of Nevada, Reno