BSM-PM: Fundamental Physics with Cold Radioactive Molecules

Quantum science tools can be used to reveal the basic laws of nature, study the building blocks of matter with extreme precision, and understand how atoms bond to form molecules at the most fundamental level. However, it remains challenging to apply these tools to atoms and molecules containing exotic nuclei which are rare, radioactive, or both. Combining quantum precision measurement with exotic nuclei will open new fields of study and advance progress in nuclear, high energy, quantum, chemical, and astrophysical science, and will support national leadership in this rapidly growing field. The main thrusts of the approach are to integrate exotic nuclei directly into the same type of apparatus used for a wide range of quantum precision measurements and quantum information science, and then to use quantum science tools to study atoms and molecules containing these nuclei. The work will build on tools to cool exotic atoms, synthesize them into molecules using laser-driven chemistry, and perform sensitive detection, all of which were developed with the support of a prior NSF award. The goals of this work are to improve the precision of our measurements, extend to new types of atoms and molecules, and study underexplored molecular structures containing exotic nuclei. The focus is on studying species with applications in nuclear science, high energy physics, and exotic chemistry. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.