Optical activity induced by rotation of atomic spin

Abstract

Physical systems or processes invariant under mirror reflection are not expected to exhibit intrinsically chiral asymmetries. Thus, it is ordinarily the case that unbounded and unexcited atoms (in the absence of weak nuclear interactions) should not manifest circular birefringence. It is shown, however, that in a rotating reference frame the coupling of atomic spin angular momentum to the angular velocity of the rest frame gives to optical activity even in the absence of contributions from nuclear interactions and the classical Coriolis force. Ground-state atomic hydrogen is predicted to be optically active in the microwave region near the hyperfine splitting frequency of 1420 MHz. Under appropriate circumstances, this spin-associated rotational circular birefringence can be some ten orders of magnitude larger than that previously estimated for virtual electronic transitions failing within the visible and UV portions of the spectrum.PACS 31.90 -Other topics in the theory of the electronic structure of atoms and molecules (including properties other than the energy). PACS 03.65 -Quantum theory; quantum mechanics.

On the Spin-Rotation-Gravity Coupling

“…This treatment has been extended in several important directions by a number of investigators [13][14][15][16]. The significance of spin-rotation coupling for atomic physics has been pointed out by Silverman [17]. Moreover, the astrophysical consequences of the helicity flip of massive neutrinos as a consequence of spin-rotation coupling have been investigated by Papini and his collaborators [18].…”

Rotation Intrinsic Spin Coupling: The Parallelism Description

“…This treatment has been extended in several important directions by a number of investigators [2,4,7,8]. The significance of rotation-spin coupling for atomic physics has been pointed out by Silverman [13].…”

Quantum Systems in Weak Gravitational Fields

“…Spin-inertia and spin-gravity interactions are the subject of numerous theoretical [9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16] and experimental efforts [17,18,19,20,21]. At the same time precise Earth-bound and near space experimental tests of fundamental theories require that inertial effects be identified with great accuracy.…”