Sensing chirality is of fundamental importance to many fields, including analytical and biological chemistry, pharmacology, and fundamental physics. Recent developments have extended optical chiral sensing using microwaves, fs pulses, superchiral lig
ht, and photoionization. The most widely used methods are the traditional methods of circular dichroism and optical rotation (OR). However, chiral signals are typically very weak, and their measurement is limited by larger time-dependent backgrounds and by imperfect and slow subtraction procedures. Here, we demonstrate a pulsed-laser bowtie-cavity-enhanced polarimeter with counter-propagating beams, which solves these background problems: the chiral signals are enhanced by the number of cavity passes; the effects of linear birefringence are suppressed by a large induced intracavity Faraday rotation; and rapid signal reversals are effected by reversing the Faraday rotation and subtracting signals from the counter-propagating beams. These advantages allow measurements of absolute chiral signals in environments where background subtractions are not feasible: we measure optical rotation from chiral vapour in open air, and from chiral liquids in the evanescent wave (EW) produced by total internal reflection at a prism surface. EW-OR of (+)-maltodextrin and (-)-fructose solutions confirm the Drude-Condon model for Maxwells equations in isotropic optically active media. In particular, the effective optical rotation path length, near index matching, is equal to the Goos-Hanchen shift of the EW. The limits of this polarimeter, when using a continuous-wave laser locked to a stable high-finesse cavity, should match sensitivity measurements for linear birefringence ($3times 10^{-13}$ rad), which is several orders of magnitude more sensitive than current chiral detection limits, transforming the power of chiral sensing in many fields.
We identify a pair of near-degenerate states of opposite parity in atomic Xe, the $5p^5 10s ,, ^2[3/2]_2^o$ at $rm{E}=94759.927$ cm$^{-1}$ and $5p^5 6f ,, ^2[5/2]_2$ at $rm{E}= 94759.935$ cm$^{-1}$, for which parity- and time-odd effects are expected
to be enhanced by the small energy separation. We present theoretical calculations which indicate narrow widths for both states and we report a calculated value for the weak matrix element, arising from configuration mixing, of $|W|=2.1$ Hz for $^{132}$Xe. In addition, we measured the Stark effect of the $5p^5,6f$ $^2[5/2]_{2}$ and $5p^5 ,6f ^2[3/2]_2$ ($rm{E} =94737.121,rm{cm}^{-1}$) states. The Stark-shift of the $6f$ states is observed to be negative, revealing the presence of nearby $6g$ states at higher energies, which have not been observed before. The Stark-shift measurements imply an upper limit on the weak matrix element of $|W|!<!5$ Hz for the near-degenerate states ($10s ,, ^2[3/2]_2^o$ and $6f ,, ^2[5/2]_2$), which is in agreement with the presented calculations.
We present the theoretical basis of a cavity-enhanced polarimetric scheme for the measurement of parity-nonconserving (PNC) optical rotation. We discuss the possibility of detecting PNC optical rotation in accessible transitions in metastable Xe and
Hg, and ground state I. In particular, the physics of the PNC optical rotation is presented, and we explore the lineshape effects on the expected PNC optical rotation signals. Furthermore, we present an analysis of the eigenpolarizations of the cavity-enhanced polarimeter, which is necessary for understanding the measurement procedure and the ability of employing robust background subtraction procedures using two novel signal reversals. Using recent atomic structure theoretical calculations, we present simulations of the PNC optical rotation signals for all proposed transitions, assuming a range of experimentally feasible parameters. Finally, the possibility of performing sensitive measurements of the nuclear-spin-dependent PNC effects is investigated, for the odd-neutron nuclei $^{129}$Xe and $^{199}$Hg, and the odd-proton nucleus $^{127}$I.
