Precision measurements in atoms for astrophysics and fundamental physics

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The study of the history of the formation of the elements in the Universe is a fundamental area of astrophysics that has undergone tremendous advances in the last ten years as a result of the availability of new high-resolution satellite-based and ground-based telescopes, new theoretical models, and the availability of high-quality atomic physics data produced by a small number of groups around the world, including ours. These data are also applied to the study of processes occurring in the unseen interiors of stars by measuring chemical abundances in the outer layers. In our laboratory we use a laser to make extremely precise and selective measurements of astrophysically important properties of atoms, including the wavelengths (colours) at which they absorb light, the rate at which the absorption occurs, and the small changes in these wavelengths produced by interactions between the nucleus and the electrons of the atom. We use a small accelerator to make the atoms travel at high speed in vacuum in order to achieve the highest precision without any effects from collisions, a technique applied to absorption-rate measurements only by our group.