Bridging the gap between spectroscopy of hot, radioactive ion beams, and cold, precise measurements

Atomic and molecular ions contained in RF traps are demonstrating to provide some of the most precise measurements possible of electron-nucleon interactions.

Atoms and molecules containing radioactive nuclei are predicted to offer significant enhancements to constrain beyond the Standard Model effects, including searches for time-reversal symmetry, dark matter candidates and yet to be observed nuclear properties.

However, radioactive atoms and molecules present challenges for precision spectroscopy: they are produced at low rates (often <1000 per second), in hot environments (>300 K) and require accelerated beam energies to isolate (>10 keV).

This contribution presents a setup under construction to efficiently adapt bunches of radioactive ions to a cryogenic ion trapping environment, which will additionally permit electric-field polarisation of molecules to allow for searches of eEDMs, nuclear Schiff moments and magnetic quadrupole moments.