The effects of parity violation of molecular structure

Abstract

Through the action of the parity-violating weak interactions, a chiral molecule and its enantiomer are expected to have equilibrium structures which slightly deviate from an exact mirror-image relationship. It is found that such deviations, and the resulting small differences in the electromagnetic interactions within enantiomeric molecules, are insufficient to perturb significantly or counteract the inherent parity-violating energy differences between enantiomers.