0000000000650457
AUTHOR
Victor Flambaum
Variation of fundamental constants and 229Th
The first excited state of the nucleus229Th has an exceptionally small excitation energy of7.8 eV, which is expected to be very sensitive to changes in the fine structure constant α.A small difference in the Coulomb energies of the two states, which both are of the order109eV, would amplify variations in α into large variations of the transition frequency.Hartree-Fock and Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov calculations are performed to compute theCoulomb energies of the two states. The kinetic energies are also calculated which reflecta possible variation in the nucleon or quark masses or local Lorentz invariance violation. peerReviewed
Infrasonic, Acoustic and Seismic Waves Produced by the Axion Quark Nuggets
We advocate an idea that the Axion Quark Nuggets (AQN) hitting the Earth can be detected by analysing the infrasound, acoustic and seismic waves which always accompany the AQN's passage in the atmosphere and underground. Our estimates for the infrasonic frequency $\nu\simeq 5$ ~Hz and overpressure $\delta p\sim 0.3 ~$Pa for relatively large size dark matter (DM) nuggets suggest that sensitivity of presently available instruments is already sufficient to detect very intense (but very rare) events today with existing technology. A study of much more frequent but less intense events requires a new type of instruments. We propose a detection strategy for a systematic study to search for such re…
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…