Nuclear-spin dependent parity violation in optically trapped polyatomic molecules

Improved nuclear spin-dependent parity violation measurements will enable experimental determination of poorly known electroweak coupling parameters. Here, we investigate the suitability of optically trapped linear polyatomic molecules as probes of nuclear spindependent parity violation. The presence of closely spaced, opposite-parity l-doublets is a general feature of such molecules, allowing parity-violation-sensitive pairs of levels to be brought to degeneracy in magnetic fields typically 100 times smaller than in diatomics. Assuming laser cooling and trapping of polyatomics at the current state-of-the-art for diatomics, we expect to measure nuclear spin-dependent parity-violating matrix elements iW with 70 times better sensitivity than the current best measurements. Our scheme should allow for 10% measurements of iW in nuclei as light as Be or as heavy as Yb, with averaging times on the order of 10 days and 1 s, respectively.