Prize for a Faculty Member for Research in an Undergraduate Institution: Tests of Fundamental Physics at the Tabletop's Edge

Our undergraduate research program at Cal State East Bay is reviewed, where the tools of atomic physics are used to carry out precision tests of fundamental physics. Our relatively small-scale, "table-top" experiments search for long-range spin-mass (spin-gravity) interactions, evidence of ultralight bosonic dark matter, and anomalous signals from cataclysmic astrophysical events. The focus of our recent work has been organizing the Global Network of Optical Magnetometers for Exotic physics searches (GNOME), a worldwide network of time-synchronized atomic magnetometers searching for correlated signals due to ultralight bosonic fields. Future research involves the development of a new class of detectors: Levitated Ferromagnetic Torque Sensors (LeFTS). Micron-scale ferromagnets, if sufficiently isolated from the environment, are predicted to display gyroscopic behavior due to their polarized electron spins. Rapid averaging of quantum uncertainty enables LeFTS, in principle, to probe exotic spin-dependent interactions with far greater sensitivity than existing methods. These table-top experiments are ideal for mentorship of undergraduate students. Students are involved in all aspects of the work: from planning, design, and construction of the apparatus to data acquisition and analysis. Cal State East Bay is one of the most diverse universities in the United States, and so our program has provided an entry point into physics research for underserved students from a wide variety of backgrounds.