Effect of atomic number on parity-violating energy differences between enantiomers

Abstract

Within a relativistic framework, the ground-state energy difference between left and right isomers of a chiral molecule is calculated. This energy difference is due to parity non conserving, electron-nucleus interaction. The influence of high-Z atoms, up to lead (Z=82) is investigated, for elements belonging to to groups 14 and 16, as well as Pt. Electron-nucleus overlaps are systematically calculated in a Dirac-Hartree-Fock scheme, showing a relativistic increase of the overlap of the order of 10 for Z∼80.