CEBAF Center Auditorium
Title: Nuclear Clocks for Testing Fundamental Physics
Speaker: Marianna Safronova, University of Delaware
Abstract: The extraordinary advances in quantum control of matter and light have been transformative for precision measurements enabling probes of the most basic laws of Nature to gain a fundamental understanding of the physical Universe. The long-lived isomer in 229Th, first studied in the 1970s as an exotic feature in nuclear physics, is the only known candidate for the development of a nuclear clock. The transition energy between the ground and first excited states of 229Th is unusually small and amounts to only several eV, making it the only laser-accessible nuclear transition. An optical clock based on this transition is expected to be a very sensitive probe for variation of fundamental constants, searches for violations of Einstein's equivalence principle, and ultralight dark matter. I will discuss these opportunities to discover new physics with a nuclear clock on the ground and in space.
Bio: Marianna S. Safronova is a Professor of Physics at the University of Delaware. Safronova earned a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Notre Dame in 2001. Her diverse research interests include applications of quantum technologies to search for physics beyond the standard model of elementary particles and fields, the development of atomic and nuclear clocks and their applications, ultra-cold atoms and quantum information, studies of fundamental symmetries, dark matter searches, quantum many-body theory and development of high-precision relativistic atomic codes, development of the online atomic data portal, highly-charged ions, superheavy atoms, and other topics. She is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the 2018-2019 Chair of the American Physical Society Division of the Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics. She is a member of the Quantum Science and Technology Journal Editorial Board.
Zoom Link: https://jlab-org.zoomgov.com/j/1614527626?pwd=b1BkNGxIa3NvSWZwdjBPVldoaXdSQT09
Meeting ID: 161 452 7626
Passcode: 679909