High-resolution FTIR spectroscopy of trisulfane HSSSH: a candidate for detecting parity violation in chiral molecules

We report the first successful high-resolution analyses of the Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrum of trisulfane. A band centered at 861.0292 cm can be assigned unambiguously to the chiral trans conformer by means of ground state combination differences in comparison with known rotational spectra. A second band near 864.698 cm is tentatively assigned to the cis conformer by comparison with theory. The results are discussed in relation to their importance for experimental attempts to measure the parity violating energy difference Δ E between the ground states of enantiomers of chiral molecules.