Quantum control of polar molecules for fundamental symmetry-violation searches*

Precision measurements of time-reversal (T) symmetry violation in molecular systems provide stringent tests of new physics beyond the Standard Model. For example, recent measurements of the electron’s electric dipole moment (eEDM) [1,2] have excluded a broad parameter space of T-violating physics up to energy scales of ~10 TeV. Symmetry-violating nuclear moments, such as the nuclear Schiff moment and nuclear magnetic quadrupole moment (MQM), are sensitive to T-violation in the hadronic sector. I will present our recent progress towards measuring the MQM using the polyatomic ¹⁷³YbOH molecule, including a prototype spin-precession experiment using Ramsey spectroscopy, and a new method to engineer field-insensitive clock transitions in molecules with complex internal structures for symmetry-violation searches [3]. In addition, I will present our recent proposal for futher advacing the quantum control of molecules and thus improving the T-violation searches by Rydberg atom-enabled sympathetic cooling, quantum logic control and entanglement generation [4,5], as well as a new quantum entanglement-enhanced metrology protocol [6].

[1] V. Andreev et al., Improved limit on the electric dipole moment of the electron, Nature 562, 355 (2018)

[2] T. S. Roussy et al., An improved bound on the electron’s electric dipole moment, Science 381, 44 (2023).

[3] Y. Takahashi et al., Engineering field-insensitive molecular clock transitions for symmetry violation searches, arXiv:2304.13817, Accepted to Phys. Rev. Lett. (2023)

[4] CZ et al., Sympathetic cooling and slowing of molecules with Rydberg atoms, arXiv:2307.01418 (2023)

[5] CZ and M. R. Tarbutt, Quantum Computation in a Hybrid Array of Molecules and Rydberg Atoms, PRX Quantum 3, 030340 (2022)

[6] CZ et al., Quantum-Enhanced Metrology for Molecular Symmetry Violation using Decoherence-Free Subspaces, arXiv:2307.05858, Accepted to Phys. Rev. Lett. (2023)