Speaker
Description
Ultracold molecules have recently
drawn widespread interest as exquisite platforms for precision measurements to
probe fundamental physics. In particular, the internal structure of molecules with a
heavy nucleus, large electric dipole moment, and several bosonic and fermionic
isotopologues leads to vastly improved sensitivities to symmetry-violating physics.
The current generation of precision measurement experiments is using fast
cryogenic molecular beams, and thus, is significantly limited in the achievable
duration of coherent measurement and degree of quantum state control. The
natural next step is to borrow the techniques of atomic laser cooling and trapping,
and extend them to molecules. While the rich internal structure complicates this
realization in heavy dipolar molecules, particularly in fermionic species with
complex hyperfine structure, there has been significant progress towards this goal
over the last two decades. Building upon these advances, we are building a
precision metrology platform by laser cooling and trapping different isotopologues
of barium monofluoride (BaF) molecules in an optical lattice to study
symmetry-violating physics. While trapping and ultracold temperatures will allow
for record-long coherence times and better control over the internal quantum
states, the ability to switch between different bosonic and fermionic isotopologues
will enable access to varying scenarios of symmetry violations. The techniques
developed in this project are advancing us in the direction of achieving denser
ensembles of ultracold heavy molecules where interactions begin to play a crucial
role, and thus, facilitating sensing schemes that use entanglement to surpass the
standard quantum limit, paving the way to true quantum metrology with molecules.
