Production, cooling, and spectroscopy of radioactive molecules

Atoms and molecules are sensitive proves of the nucleus, including collective nuclear CP-violating effects such as magnetic quadrupole moments and nuclear Schiff moments. Molecules provide high intrinsic sensitivity due to their ability to be efficiently polarized in the laboratory frame, and certain heavy octupole-deformed nuclei provide further enhancements due to their unique structure and properties. Molecules containing these nuclei offer over a million-fold intrinsic sensitivity gain compared to the state-of-the-art atoms containing spherical nuclei. However, the challenges of working with radioactive species compound with the challenges of taming complex molecular structure, so such experiments are still in their infancy. In this talk, I will describe our efforts to chemically synthesize, cryogenically cool, and then perform broadband and high-resolution spectroscopy on radium-226-containing molecules, including RaOH and RaOD. The methods are generic and can be applied to a wide range of species, including those with applications in radiochemistry, nuclear structure, and nuclear astrophysics.