Table-top synthesis, cooling, and spectroscopy of radioactive molecules for symmetry violation searches.

Radioactive molecules are highly sensitive platforms for studies of fundamental nuclear and particle physics due to their large enhancements of CP-violating electromagnetic moments. However, practical challenges associated with producing the necessary quantities of these molecules have made their study difficult. We discuss a table-top, cryogenic buffer gas system capable of high-resolution spectroscopy on microgram-scale quantities of rare isotope molecules. Using this apparatus, we synthesize, cool, and perform high-resolution spectroscopy on radium-226 hydroxide (RaOH) molecules for the first time. RaOH is a promising candidate for next-generation symmetry violation searches, such as the Schiff moment and electron's electric dipole moment, due to the static octupole deformation of the radium nucleus and the predicted laser-coolability of the molecule.