Description:

Title: Searching for Physics Beyond the Standard Model with Laser-cooled
Radium

Speaker: Matt Dietrich, Argonne National Lab

Abstract: Electric dipole moments (EDMs) are signatures of time-reversal, parity, and
charge-parity (CP) violation, which makes them a sensitive probe of expected
new physics beyond the Standard Model, such as supersymmetry.  No experiment
has yet observed a non-zero EDM to challenge the Standard Model.  Due to its
large nuclear octupole deformation and high atomic mass, the radioactive
Ra-225 isotope is a favorable EDM case; it is particularly sensitive to
CP-violating interactions in the nuclear medium.  We have developed a cold-atom
approach of studying the spin precession of the Ra-225 atoms held in an
optical dipole trap, and demonstrated the method by completing the first
measurement of its atomic EDM, reaching an upper limit on the order of
1e-23 e-cm.  Upcoming improvements are expected to dramatically improve
our sensitivity, and significantly improve on the search for new physics in
several sectors.

Host: Brian Odom

Speaker Schedule

Keywords: Physics, Astronomy, colloquium