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Precision spectroscopy of RaF molecules for fundamental physics

ORAL · Invited

Abstract

Compared to atoms, molecules can offer more than five orders of magnitude enhanced sensitivity to violations of fundamental symmetries, enabling the possibility to probe energy scales beyond hundreds of TeV. Containing octupole-deformed nuclei, radium monofluoride (RaF) is expected to be highly sensitive to the parity-violating nuclear anapole moment as well as to the parity- and time-reversal violating nuclear Schiff and magnetic quadrupole moments. In this talk, I will present the latest results obtained from a series of laser spectroscopy experiments performed on short-lived RaF molecules. I will first describe a measurement of the isotope shift of five RaF isotopologues, 223-226,228RaF. These results demonstrate the particularly high sensitivity of RaF to nuclear size effects, offering a stringent test of models describing the electronic density within the radium nucleus. I will then show preliminary results from high-resolution laser spectroscopy experiments of 223RaF and 226RaF. Rotational and hyperfine constants of these two isotopologues will be presented. These results represent the first of their kind performed on radioactive, short-lived molecules, opening the way for precision studies and new physics searches in these systems.

Publication: RF Garcia Ruiz, R Berger, J Billowes, CL Binnersley, ML Bissell, AA Breier, AJ Brinson, K Chrysalidis, T Cocolios, B Cooper, et al., "Spectroscopy of short-lived radioactive molecules," Nature 581, 396 (2020).<br>Udrescu, S. M., et al. "Isotope Shifts of Radium Monofluoride Molecules." arXiv preprint arXiv:2105.10549 (2021).<br>Udrescu, S. M., et al. "Isotope Shifts of Radium Monofluoride Molecules." Phys. Rev. Lett., Accepted as Editors' Suggestion (2021)

Presenters

  • Silviu-Marian Udrescu

    Massachusetts Institute of Technology MI, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Authors

  • Silviu-Marian Udrescu

    Massachusetts Institute of Technology MI, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  • Ronald Fernando Garcia Ruiz

    MIT Laboratory for Nuclear Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, CERN, MIT

  • Alex Brinson

    Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  • Konstantin Gaul

    Fachbereich Chemie, Philipps – Universität Marburg

  • Robert Berger

    Fachbereich Chemie, Philipps – Universität Marburg

  • Jon Billowes

    School of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Manchester

  • Cory Binnersley

    School of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Manchester

  • Mark L Bissell

    School of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Manchester

  • Alex Breier

    Laboratory for Astrophysics, Institute of Physics, University of Kassel

  • Katerina Chrysalidis

    CERN

  • Thomas E Cocolios

    KU Leuven, Instituut voor Kern − en Stralingsfysica

  • Ben Cooper

    School of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Manchester

  • Kieran Flanagan

    School of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Manchester; Photon Science Institute, The University of Manchester

  • Thomas Giesen

    Laboratory for Astrophysics, Institute of Physics, University of Kassel

  • Ruber de Groote

    Department of Physics, University of Jyväskylä

  • Serge Franchoo

    Institut de Physique Nucleaire d'Orsay

  • Fredrik P Gustafsson

    KU Leuven, Instituut voor Kern − en Stralingsfysica

  • Timur Isaev

    NRC Kurchatov Institute-PNPI

  • Agota Koszorus

    KU Leuven, Instituut voor Kern − en Stralingsfysica

  • Gerda Neyens

    CERN; 6 - KU Leuven, Instituut voor Kern − en Stralingsfysica

  • Holly Perrett

    School of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Manchester

  • Christopher Ricketts

    School of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Manchester

  • Sebastian Rothe

    CERN

  • Adam Vernon

    Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  • Klaus Wendt

    Institut für Physik, Johannes Gutenberg − Universität Mainz

  • Frank Wienholtz

    CERN; Institut für Physik, Universität Greifswald

  • Shane Wilkins

    Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; CERN

  • Xiaofei Yang

    School of Physics and State Key Laboratory of Nuclear Physics and Technology, Peking University