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First ab initio nuclear Schiff moment calculated for 19F

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A person's hands adjusting controls on a white laboratory power supply unit with red digital displays showing voltage and current readings, in a research workspace with blurred equipment visible in the background.
Research area:Physics and AstronomyNuclear and High Energy PhysicsAtomic and Molecular Physics

What the study found

The study reports the first-ever calculation of a nuclear Schiff moment, a measure tied to certain symmetry violations in atomic nuclei, in a nuclear ab initio framework for fluorine-19. The authors also used this result with molecular calculations for HfF+ to obtain the first experimental bound on the 19F nuclear Schiff moment.

Why the authors say this matters

The authors say nuclear Schiff moments are sensitive probes for physics beyond the standard model of particle physics because they signal violations of time-reversal and parity-inversion symmetries. They conclude that this work lays the foundation for constraining pion-nucleon-nucleon, or πNN, interactions using nuclear ab initio methods.

What the researchers tested

The researchers used the no-core shell model, a nuclear structure method that treats all nucleons as active, to study fluorine-19. They also performed quantum-chemistry calculations to determine how sensitive the hafnium monofluoride cation, HfF+, is to the 19F nuclear Schiff moment.

What worked and what didn't

Their combined nuclear and molecular calculations, together with recent high-precision measurements of the molecular electric dipole moment of HfF+, enabled the first experimental bound on the 19F nuclear Schiff moment. The abstract says the resulting bounds on πNN coupling constants are not yet the most stringent.

What to keep in mind

The abstract does not give the numerical bound values in the text provided. It also notes that the πNN coupling-constant bounds are not yet the strongest available, so the scope of the result is limited by current precision.

Key points

  • The paper reports the first nuclear ab initio calculation of a nuclear Schiff moment for 19F.
  • The authors combined nuclear structure calculations with quantum-chemistry calculations for HfF+.
  • Using these results and recent measurements of HfF+ electric dipole moment, they obtained the first experimental bound on the 19F nuclear Schiff moment.
  • The abstract says nuclear Schiff moments probe time-reversal and parity-inversion symmetry violations.
  • The resulting bounds on πNN coupling constants are not yet the most stringent.

Disclosure

Research title:
First ab initio nuclear Schiff moment calculated for 19F
Authors:
Kia Boon Ng, Stephan Foster, Lan Cheng, P. Navrátil, S. Malbrunot-Ettenauer
Institutions:
Johns Hopkins University, McMaster University, University of Toronto
Publication date:
2026-02-26
DOI:
10.1103/m4fx-g1h6
OpenAlex record:
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AI provenance: This post was generated by gpt-5.4-mini (OpenAI). The original authors did not write or review this post.