Jul 17 – 22, 2022
Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto
America/Toronto timezone

Nuclear T-violation search using octupolar nuclei in a crystal

Jul 20, 2022, 5:00 PM
1h 30m
Hart House (Hart House)

Hart House

Hart House

7 Hart House Cir, Toronto, ON M5S 3H3
Poster presentation Precision measurement and tests of fundamental physics Poster session

Description

The matter-antimatter asymmetry of the universe suggests that new sources of time-reversal symmetry (T) violation lurk at energy scales beyond the reach of colliders. New particles or T-violating interactions coupled to nucleons can lead to nuclear Schiff moments or magnetic quadrupole moments, which result in measurable energy differences between the spin states of nuclei inside electrically polarized atoms.

Nuclei with the highest intrinsic sensitivity to T-violation (octupolar nuclei) are often short-lived radioactive isotopes. Further, obtaining large atomic polarization typically requires the use of heavy polar molecules that are challenging to cool and trap. Therefore, demanding both enhancement factors -- large intrinsic T-violation sensitivity and large atomic polarization -- usually leads to significant experimental complexity and limited choices for feasible nuclear/molecular candidates. We present a way to evade these constraints and access both the enhancement factors using stable nuclei in a solid.

Our approach uses $^{153}$Eu doped into a crystal, which realizes a large ensemble of octupolar nuclei within strongly polarized atomic ions. This system offers a simple but powerful means to hunt for T-violating physics at PeV-scale energies. We will discuss the details of our approach and our progress towards a pathfinder experiment.

Presenter name Harish Ramachandran
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Primary authors

Harish Ramachandran (University of Toronto) Prof. Amar Vutha (University of Toronto)

Presentation materials

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