0000000000650446
AUTHOR
Robert Berger
Opportunities for Fundamental Physics Research with Radioactive Molecules
Molecules containing short-lived, radioactive nuclei are uniquely positioned to enable a wide range of scientific discoveries in the areas of fundamental symmetries, astrophysics, nuclear structure, and chemistry. Recent advances in the ability to create, cool, and control complex molecules down to the quantum level, along with recent and upcoming advances in radioactive species production at several facilities around the world, create a compelling opportunity to coordinate and combine these efforts to bring precision measurement and control to molecules containing extreme nuclei. In this manuscript, we review the scientific case for studying radioactive molecules, discuss recent atomic, mo…
Spectroscopy of short-lived radioactive molecules
Molecular spectroscopy offers opportunities for the exploration of the fundamental laws of nature and the search for new particle physics beyond the standard model1–4. Radioactive molecules—in which one or more of the atoms possesses a radioactive nucleus—can contain heavy and deformed nuclei, offering high sensitivity for investigating parity- and time-reversal-violation effects5,6. Radium monofluoride, RaF, is of particular interest because it is predicted to have an electronic structure appropriate for laser cooling6, thus paving the way for its use in high-precision spectroscopic studies. Furthermore, the effects of symmetry-violating nuclear moments are strongly enhanced5,7–9 in molecu…
Isotope Shifts of Radium Monofluoride Molecules
Isotope shifts of $^{223-226,228}$Ra$^{19}$F were measured for different vibrational levels in the electronic transition $A^{2}{}{\Pi}_{1/2}\leftarrow X^{2}{}{\Sigma}^{+}$. The observed isotope shifts demonstrate the particularly high sensitivity of radium monofluoride to nuclear size effects, offering a stringent test of models describing the electronic density within the radium nucleus. Ab initio quantum chemical calculations are in excellent agreement with experimental observations. These results highlight some of the unique opportunities that short-lived molecules could offer in nuclear structure and in fundamental symmetry studies.
Kommentar zu: H. Mustroph, S. Ernst “Das Franck-Condon-Prinzip”
Die Zeitschrift “Chemie in unserer Zeit” wendet sich an ein breites Leserspektrum. Sie will zuverlassig uber neue Entwicklungen in der Chemie und verwandten Gebieten berichten sowie komplexe Sachverhalte auch fur den Nichtfachmann verstandlich aufbereiten. Mit grosem Bedauern kommen wir jedoch zu der Einschatzung, dass der Beitrag “Wer kennt es noch? Das Franck-Condon-Prinzip” von H. Mustroph und S. Ernst (im Folgenden als Ref. 1 bezeichnet) nach unserem Ermessen diesem Anspruch nicht gerecht wird. Der Beitrag enthalt einige erhebliche fachliche Fehler sowie sachlich unbegrundete und zum Teil irrefuhrende Kritik an Lehrbuchinhalten und wissenschaftlichen Arbeiten. Wir sehen es daher geboten…