Speaker
Description
Molecules that contain heavy and radioactive nuclei can be highly sensitive to a number of nuclear observables of interest, such as the typically studied nuclear magnetic dipole and electric quadrupole moments, but also symmetry-violating hadronic, leptonic, and nuclear moments.
Precision experiments based on heavy and polar radioactive molecules have been proposed as being potentially the most sensitive probes to pin down the level of time-reversal violation in the fundamental forces. Significant technical developments are necessary to bridge the gap between radionuclide production and the techniques that have been developed for high-precision experiments with stable molecules, however. Therefore, global efforts are invested in enabling precision searches for beyond-the-Standard-Model physics with radioactive molecules, along multiple technical directions.
In this talk, the opportunities for fundamental and nuclear physics research with radioactive molecules will be overviewed, followed by a summary of the experimental techniques that have been developed for the type of experiments that radioactive molecules are envisioned for. A summary of recent activities on the production and study of radioactive molecules at CERN-ISOLDE will follow.