Search for Anomalous Physics with Precision Measurements

通过精密测量寻找异常物理现象

• 批准号: 1507160
• 负责人: Hartmut Haeffner
• 金额: $ 30万
• 依托单位: University of California-Berkeley
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-09-15 至 2018-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1507160&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Search; Anomalous; Physics; Precision; Measurements

The spatial orientation of an experiment should never affect its outcome. For light, this principle has been tested in the famous Michelson-Morley experiment leading to the basic principle in physics known as "Lorentz invariance" and, more generally, Einstein's theory of Special Relativity. Modern theories of matter require that not only light but also all other particles should be invariant to rotations. The goal of the experiments in this project will be to perform a Michelson-Morley experiment for electrons. Detecting even tiny energy variations between electrons moving in different directions would mean that space is not isotropic and that we need an entirely new class of theories to describe nature.For the experiment, a laser pulse will create superpositions of electronic wavepackets inside Calcium ions. Those wavepackets will then evolve independently of each other in orthogonal directions. A second laser pulse will then recombine the wavepackets. The correspondinginterference signal will be directly sensitive to the difference in how the two electronic wavepackets move. The experiments rely heavily on tools developed for ion trap quantum information processing to control and measure the quantum state of individual Calcium ions. In particular, engineering symmetric quantum states of two and more ions makes the signal immune to common noise sources such as magnetic field fluctuations. Thus, the long coherence of the electron motion in combination with accurate control of all relevant systematic error sources will enable testing the isotropy of space and Lorentz invariance at the level of (and beyond) 1 part in ten to the nineteen (nineteen decimal places of accuracy).

实验的空间方向永远不应该影响它的结果。对于光，这一原理已经在著名的迈克尔逊-莫雷实验中得到了验证，导致了物理学中的基本原理，称为“洛伦兹不变性”，更一般地说，爱因斯坦的狭义相对论。现代物质理论要求不仅光，而且所有其他粒子都应该是旋转不变的。在这个项目中的实验的目标将是执行一个迈克尔逊-莫雷实验的电子。检测到不同方向上运动的电子之间即使是微小的能量变化也意味着空间不是各向同性的，我们需要一种全新的理论来描述自然。在实验中，激光脉冲将在钙离子内部产生电子波包的叠加。然后，这些波包将在正交方向上彼此独立地演化。然后，第二个激光脉冲将重新组合波包。相应的干涉信号将直接敏感于两个电子波包如何运动的差异。这些实验在很大程度上依赖于为离子阱量子信息处理开发的工具来控制和测量单个钙离子的量子态。特别是，两个或多个离子的工程对称量子态使信号不受常见噪声源（如磁场波动）的影响。因此，电子运动的长相干性与所有相关系统误差源的精确控制相结合，将使得能够在（和超过）1/10到19的水平（精确到小数点后19位）测试空间的各向同性和洛伦兹不变性。