RUI: Precise Atomic Structure Measurements and Tests of Fundamental Physics in Group IIIA atoms

在这个项目中，精心控制的激光器将以前所未有的精度探测包括铊和铟在内的一类重原子的详细原子结构。原子是典型的量子力学对象，长期以来一直被用来证实和测试量子理论。但近年来，随着激光、光学和信号处理技术的进步，对某些重原子进行了极其精确的实验，使人们对通常与基本粒子和大型加速器有关的物理学有了更深入的了解。在这些“桌面”实验中进行的基本粒子物理测试只能通过精确的实验和对这些多电子系统进行复杂的量子力学计算来实现。为了验证这一前沿原子理论的准确性，本实验室将完成在加热蒸汽池和原子束装置中使用原子的实验。最后，一项实验将探测铊原子中可能违反“时间反转”不变性的情况，这将是超越当前粒子物理标准模型的新物理学的信号。在威廉姆斯学院，这些实验作为理想的研究训练本科生物理在他们的教育的每一个阶段。在没有研究生的情况下，这些学生成长为完全投入的初级同事。自1998年美国国家科学基金会开始支持这项工作以来，已有12名学生成为期刊出版物的共同作者，20名首次接触该实验室研究的年轻科学家已经完成或正在攻读物理学及相关领域的博士学位。学生在完成实验室项目中发挥积极的核心作用，通过这些项目，他们可以发展光学和激光、电子和控制系统以及复杂的数据分析程序方面的专业知识。由于研究的物理规模相对较小，他们可以欣赏整个实验努力，获得有价值的，特定的实验技能，但参与一个令人兴奋的前沿研究领域，使用原子在最基本的层面上测试物理理论。我们将继续努力，让学生们在本科阶段这个关键的早期阶段参与这项研究，因为他们开始做出长期的职业选择。

In this project, carefully controlled lasers will be used to probe the detailed atomic structure of a class of heavy atoms including thallium and indium with unprecedented precision. Atoms, quintessential quantum mechanical objects, have long been used to confirm and test quantum theory. But in recent years, with advances in laser, optical, and signal processing technology, extremely precise experiments on certain heavy atoms have yielded insights into physics more commonly associated with elementary particles and large accelerators. Such tests of fundamental particle physics in these "table-top" experiments can only occur through both precise experiments and also sophisticated quantum mechanical calculations of these many-electron systems. Experiments in this laboratory using atoms in both heated vapor cells and atomic beam apparatus will be completed to test the accuracy of this cutting-edge atomic theory. Finally, an experiment will probe possible violations of "time-reversal" invariance in thallium atoms, which would be the signal for new physics beyond the current Standard Model of particle physics.At Williams College, these experiments serve as ideal research training for undergraduate physics students at every stage of their education. In the absence of graduate students, these students grow to become fully engaged junior colleagues. Since NSF support for this work began in 1998, a dozen students have become co-authors on journal publications, and twenty young scientists who received their first exposure to research in this laboratory have completed or are now enrolled in Ph.D. programs in physics and related fields. Students take active, central roles in completing laboratory projects through which they develop expertise with optics and lasers, electronics and control systems, as well as sophisticated data analysis procedures. Because of the relatively small physical scale of the research, they can appreciate the entirety of the experimental effort, gain valuable, specific experimental skills, and yet participate in an exciting cutting-edge research field which uses atoms to test physical theory at its most basic level. A continuing effort will be made to include students in this research at this crucial early point in their undergraduate years, as they begin to make longer-term career choices.