TOPICAL REVIEW Standard Model tests with trapped radioactive atoms ‡ J.A. Behr1 and G. Gwinner2 1 TRIUMF, 4004 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 2A3 Canada 2 Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3T 2N2 Canada E-mail:
[email protected],
[email protected] Abstract. We review the use of laser cooling and trapping for Standard Model tests, focusing on trapping of radioactive isotopes. Experiments with neutral atoms trapped using modern laser cooling techniques are testing several basic predictions of electroweak unification. For nuclear β decay, demonstrated trap techniques include neutrino momentum measurements from beta-recoil coincidences, along with methods to produce highly polarized samples. These techniques have set the best general constraints on non-Standard Model scalar interactions in the first generation of particles. They also have the promise to test whether parity symmetry is maximally violated, to search for tensor interactions, and to search for new sources of time reversal violation. There are also possibilites for exotic particle searches. Measurements of the strength of the weak neutral current can be assisted by precision atomic experiments using traps loaded with small numbers of radioactive atoms, and sensitivity to possible time-reversal violating electric dipole moments can be improved. PACS numbers: 23.40.Bw, 14.60.Pq, 32.80.Pj Published in the Journal of Physics G arXiv:0810.3942v3 [nucl-ex] 4 Mar 2009 J A Behr and G. Gwinner 2009 J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phys. 36 033101 (38pp) http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/0954-3899/36/3/033101 This is an author-created, un-copyedited version of an article accepted for publication in the Journal ‡ of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics.