Nuclear Schiff Moments and CP Violation

Abstract

This article reviews the calculation of nuclear Schiff moments, which one must know in order to interpret experiments that search for time-reversal-violating electric dipole moments in certain atoms and molecules. After briefly reviewing the connection between dipole moments and CP violation in and beyond the Standard Model of particle physics; Schiff's theorem, which concerns the screening of nuclear electric dipole moments by electrons; Schiff moments; and experiments to measure dipole moments in atoms and molecules, this review examines attempts to compute Schiff moments in nuclei such as 199 Hg and octupole-deformed isotopes such as 225 Ra, which are particularly useful in experiments. It then turns to ab initio nuclear-structure theory, describing ways in which both the in-medium similarity renormalization group and coupled-cluster theory can be used to compute important Schiff moments more accurately than the less controlled methods that have been applied so far.