Freiburg 2024 – scientific programme

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A: Fachverband Atomphysik

A 11: Precision Spectroscopy of Atoms and Ions I (joint session A/Q)

A 11.4: Talk

Tuesday, March 12, 2024, 11:45–12:00, HS 1098

Isotope shift spectroscopy in ultracold atomic mercury — •Thorsten Groh, Sascha Heider, and Simon Stellmer — Physikalisches Institut, Universität Bonn, Nussallee 12, 53115 Bonn

Low energy beyond standard model theories predict a new boson, that would act as a new force carrier coupling neutrons and leptons via a Yukawa like interaction [Delaunay, PRD 96, 093001; Berengut, PRL 120, 091801]. Precision spectroscopy of atomic isotope shifts could resolve this coupling as an energy shift of electronic levels. New physics signatures would emerge as nonlinearities in King plots of scaled isotope shifts on different electronic transitions.

We cool mercury in a magneto-optical trap. Our results on high resolution deep UV laser spectroscopy show strong deviations from linearity. Our multidimensional King plot analysis indicates that these are dominated by standard model contributions, quadratic field shifts and nuclear deformations. With recent improvements on the machine and spectroscopy results on additional lines we investigate the nonlinearity origins further.

Keywords: isotope shifts; spectroscopy; beyond standard model; magneto-optical trap; precision measurements