Search for new physics with low-energy precision tests

PhD students and postdocs that work on experiments and/or theory related to low-energy precision tests that explore the limits of the Standard Model of particle physics. Master students considering doing a PhD in this topic are also welcome.

It is expected that the participants have a sufficient command of the English language to actively participate in the discussions and to present their own work in English.

There will be lectures on:

• effective field theory to describe new physics
• trapped antimatter experiments
• atomic and molecular theory to explore new physics
• experiments with radioactive molecules and ions
• chiral molecules and parity violation

After this course you will be able to:

1. Identify connections between atomic, molecular and particle physics
2. Describe a number of key low-energy precision experiments that probe new physics
3. Make new connections in your research field

Workload & certificate

Preparation: 16 hours

Lectures: 16 hours

Presentation: 4 hours

Study and discussion: 20 hours

Upon successful completion of the programme, the Summer School offers a Certificate of Attendance that mentions the workload of 56 hours (28 hours corresponds to 1 ECTS). Students can apply for recognition of these credits to the relevant authorities in their home institutions, therefore the final decision on awarding credits is at the discretion of their home institutions. We will be happy to provide any necessary information that might be requested in addition to the certificate of attendance.

Lukáš F. Pašteka received his PhD in Theoretical and Computational Chemistry in 2013 at Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia. In 2014−2017, he was a postdoc in the group of P. Schwerdtfeger at Massey University in Auckland, New Zealand. Afterwards he re-joined his alma mater where he is now an Associate Professor. Currently he is on sabbatical at the University of Groningen. His research focuses on accurate calculations of atomic and molecular properties with particular applications in high-precision spectroscopy, relativistic and QED effects in chemistry of (super)heavy elements and the search for physics beyond the Standard Model, as well as more chemistry-oriented studies of fluxional organic molecules and molecular photoswitches.

Selected publications:

1. M.R. Fiechter et al. Toward Detection of the Molecular Parity Violation in Chiral Ru(acac)₃ and Os(acac)₃, The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters 13, 10011 (2022); DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.2c02434
2. L.F. Pašteka et al. Material Size Dependence on Fundamental Constants. Physical Review Letters 122, 160801 (2019); DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.122.160801
3. L.F. Pašteka et al. Relativistic Coupled Cluster Calculations with Variational Quantum Electrodynamics Resolve the Discrepancy between Experiment and Theory Concerning the Electron Affinity and Ionization Potential of Gold. Physical Review Letters 118, 23002 (2017); DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.023002
4. L.F. Pašteka et al. Search for the variation of fundamental constants: Strong enhancements in X²Π cations of dihalogens and hydrogen halides. Physical Review A 92, 012103 (2015); DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.92.012103
5. P. Schwerdtfeger et al. Relativistic and quantum electrodynamic effects in superheavy elements.

Julian Berengut received his Ph.D. degree from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney, Australia, on the topic of  “Isotope shift and relativistic shift in atomic spectra”. He spent two years as a postdoc in the US (Auburn University, Alabama, and Columbia University, New York). In 2008 he returned to the UNSW as a postdoctoral fellow, where he is now an Associate Professor. His research interests include astrophysical and laboratory searches for variations in the fundamental constants, searches for physics beyond the Standard Model, and development of new ultra-precise atomic clocks based on highly charged ions.
More information about Julian Berengut’s research can be found here .

Prof. dr. Rob Timmermans did his PhD research at the University of Nijmegen, after which he became a director-funded postdoctoral fellow at the Theoretical Division of Los Alamos National Laboratory. From 1998-2003 he was a fellow of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) at the accelerator institute KVI. In 2003 he became full professor of theoretical physics at the University of Groningen. Since 2014 he is a member of the Van Swinderen Institute for Particle Physics and Gravity at the Faculty of Science and Engineering. He is at present vice-dean of the Faculty of Science & Engineering with portfolio education.

His research interests include theoretical particle physics, in particular low-energy tests in the context of the Standard Model effective field theory (parity, time-reversal, Lorentz & CPT symmetries, electric dipole moments, atomic parity violation, baryon number violation, neutron-antineutron oscillations) and theoretical hadronic physics, specifically the QCD few-body problem in the context of chiral effective field theory.

Selected Publications:

1. Noordmans, J., de Vries, J., & Timmermans, R. G. E. ,Tests of Lorentz and CPT symmetry with hadrons and nuclei. Physical Review C, 94(2) (2016).
2. Vos, K. K., Wilschut, H. W., & Timmermans, R. G. E. . Symmetry violations in nuclear and neutron beta decay. Reviews of Modern Physics, 87(4), 1483-1516 (2015)
3. Baryon-number violation by two units and the deuteron lifetime, F. Oosterhof, B. Long, J. de Vries, R. G. E. Timmermans, U. van Kolck, Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 172501 (2019).

Prof. Ronald Fernando Garcia Ruiz is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Physics at MIT. His research actives are focused on the development of laser spectroscopy techniques to investigate the properties of subatomic particles using atoms and molecules made up of short-lived radioactive nuclei. His experimental work provides unique information about the fundamental forces of nature, the properties of nuclear matter at the limits of existence, and the search for new physics beyond the Standard Model of particle physics.

Ronald grew up in a small town in the Colombian mountains. As a teenager he moved to Bogota, where he obtained a bachelor’s degree in physics in 2009 at Universidad Nacional de Colombia. After earning a Master’s degree in Physics in 2011 at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, he moved to Belgium to start his PhD degree at KU Leuven. Ronald was based at CERN during most of his PhD working on laser spectroscopy techniques for the study of short-lived atomic nuclei. After his PhD, he became a Research Associate at The University of Manchester (2016-2017). In 2018, he was awarded a CERN Research Fellowship to lead the local CRIS team, before moving to MIT in 2019.

Fellowships & Awards

• 2023 Sloan Research Fellow
• 2022 APS Stuart Jay Freedman Award
• 2022 IUPAP Young Scientist Prize in Nuclear Physics
• 2021 National Academic Award in Science, Alejandro Angel Escobar Prize, Colombia
• 2020 DOE Early Career Award
• 2020 FRIB visiting scholar award
• 2020 Fundamental Physics and Innovation award - Convening award Gordon & Betty Moore
• 2019 MISTI Global Seed Fund award
• 2018 – 2019 CERN Research Fellowship. CERN, Switzerland
• 2018 IOP Nuclear Physics Group Early Career Prize. Institute of Physics (IOP), UK.
• 2018 Best PhD Thesis prize (period 2015-2017.) Nuclear Physics Division of the European Physical Society (EPS).
• 2011 – 2015 PhD scholarship. KU Leuven, Belgium.
• 2009 – 2011 Graduate Studies Fellowship. National Congress of Sci. and Tech. CONACYT, Mexico.
• 2008 – 2008 Summer student scholarship. ORNL, USA.
• 2006 – 2009  Undergraduate fellowship - Department of Physics. Univ. Nacional de Colombia.
  

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Steven Jones completed his PhD with Swansea University in 2017, where he performed the first laser spectroscopy measurements on antihydrogen. He spent two years as a postdoc with Aarhus University advancing the precision of antihydrogen spectroscopy and developing a new experiment to measure the gravitational behaviour of antimatter, before spending a further two years with Swansea University laser cooling Beryllium ions to sympathetically cool positrons. In 2022, he was appointed as an Assistant Professor at the University of Groningen, where he studies both hydrogen and antihydrogen, aiming to make direct comparisons between them that are insensitive to systematic shifts. His research interests include ion trapping and cooling techniques, molecular photodissociation, precision metrology, and tests of matter-antimatter symmetries.

Selected publications:
S. A. Jones. An ion trap source of cold atomic hydrogen via photodissociation of the BaH+ molecular ion. New J. Phys. 24 023016 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/ac4ef3
C. J. Baker et al. (ALPHA collaboration). Sympathetic cooling of positrons to cryogenic temperatures for antihydrogen production. Nat Commun 12, 6139 (2021).https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-26086-1
C. J. Baker et al. (ALPHA collaboration). Laser Cooling of Antihydrogen Atoms. Nature592, 35-42 (2021) https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03289-6

Benoit Darquié

Affiliation: Laboratoire de Physique des Lasers, CNRS, Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, F-93430, Villetaneuse, France
PhD at Laboratoire Charles Fabry, Institut d’Optique, France (with P. Grangier, 2005) in atomic physics/quantum optics/quantum information, on single atom trapping and manipulation in microscopic optical tweezers. Postdoc at Imperial College London (with Ed Hinds, 2005-2008) on the manipulation of ultracold atoms on atom chips with integrated optical microcavities. Upon joining CNRS as a permanent researcher in 2008, he moved to molecular physics and precise spectroscopic measurements. He is for instance currently developing new-generation molecular clocks specifically designed for precision vibrational spectroscopy of cold polyatomic molecules. This activity is at the forefront of cold molecule research and frequency metrology, and opens possibilities for using polyatomic molecules to perform tests of fundamental physics and explore the limits of the standard model, but also to address questions in astrophysics and atmospheric physics.

Selected publications:

1. MR Fiechter, PAB Haase, N Saleh, P Soulard, B Tremblay, RWA Havenith, RGE Timmermans, P Schwerdtfeger, J Crassous, B Darquié, LF Pašteka, A Borschevsky*, Towards detection of the molecular parity violation in chiral Ru(acac)3 and Os(acac)3, J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 13, 42, 10011–10017 (2022)
   http://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpclett.2c02434
   https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03828954
2. J Lukusa Mudiayi, I Maurin, T Mashimo, JC de Aquino Carvalho, D Bloch, SK Tokunaga, B Darquié, A Laliotis*, Linear Probing of Molecules at Micrometric Distances from a Surface with Sub-Doppler Frequency Resolution, Phys Rev Lett 127, 043201 (2021)
   http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.127.043201
   https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03376506
3. R Santagata, DBA Tran, B Argence, O Lopez, SK Tokunaga, F Wiotte, H Mouhamad, A Goncharov, M Abgrall, Y Le Coq, H Alvarez-Martinez, R Le Targat, WK Lee, D Xu, P-E Pottie, B Darquié*, A Amy-Klein, High-precision methanol spectroscopy with a widely tunable SI-traceable frequency-comb-based mid-IR QCL, Optica 6, 411-423 (2019)
   http://doi.org/10.1364/OPTICA.6.000411
   https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02190798
4. A Cournol, M Manceau, M Pierens, L Lecordier, DBA Tran, R Santagata, B Argence, A Goncharov, O Lopez, M Abgrall, Y Le Coq, R Le Targat, H Álvarez Martinez, WK Lee, D Xu, P-E Pottie, RJ Hendricks, TE Wall, JM Bieniewska, BE Sauer, MR Tarbutt, A Amy-Klein, SK Tokunaga, B Darquié*, A new experiment to test the parity symmetry in cold chiral molecules using vibrational spectroscopy, Quantum Electron. 49, 288-292 (2019)
   http://doi.org/10.1070/QEL16880
   https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02405868
5. J Fischer, B Fellmuth, C Gaiser*, T Zandt, L Pitre, F Sparasci, M D Plimmer, M de Podesta, R Underwood, G Sutton, G Machin, R M Gavioso, D Madonna Ripa, P P M Steur, J Qu, X J Feng, J Zhang, M R Moldover, S P Benz, D R White, L Gianfrani, A Castrillo, L Moretti, B Darquié, E. Moufarej, C Daussy, S Briaudeau, O Kozlova, L Risegari, J J Segovia, M C Martín, D del Campo, The Boltzmann Project, Metrologia 55, R1 (2018).
   http://doi.org/10.1088/1681-7575/aaa790
   https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02410541
6. SK Tokunaga, RJ Hendricks, MR Tarbutt* and B Darquié*, High-resolution mid-infrared spectroscopy of buffer-gas-cooled methyltrioxorhenium molecules, New J. Phys. 19, 053006 (2017).
   http://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/aa6de4
   https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01348950

Natalia S. Oreshkina did her PhD at Saint-Petersburg State University (Russia) on the topic "QED and correlation corrections to the hyperfine structure of highly charged ions". In 2011 she joined Max Planck Institute of Nuclear Physics (Heidelberg, Germany) as a postdoc, and after few years she started her group there. The main subject of her studies is the high-precision theory of highly-charged ions and muonic atoms, and their applications for fundamental research, probing nuclear physics in atomic experiments, and for the search for the New Physics beyond the Standard Model.

Selected publications:
1. Evidence against nuclear polarization as source of fine-structure anomalies in muonic atoms I. A. Valuev, G. Colò, X. Roca-Maza, C. H. Keitel, N. S. Oreshkina, Phys. Rev. Lett. 128,203001 (2022).
2. Testing standard-model extensions with isotope shifts in few-electron ions
V. Debierre, N. S. Oreshkina, I. A. Valuev, Z. Harman, C. H. Keitel, Phys. Rev. A 106, 062801 (2022).
3.  Hyperfine splitting in simple ions for the search of the variation of fundamental constants N. S. Oreshkina, S. M. Cavaletto, N. Michel, Z. Harman, and C. H. Keitel, Phys. Rev. A 96, 030501(R) (2017).

See for more information here: https://www.mpi-hd.mpg.de/mpi/en/forschung/abteilungen-und-gruppen/theoretische-quantendynamik-und-quantenelektrodynamik/people/natalia-s-oreshkina

About the organizers

Prof. dr. Steven Hoekstra is an experimental physicist specialised in the development and application of precision measurement techniques to explore the limits of particle physics. In his group, experiments with small quantum systems (atoms, ions, molecules) and nanoparticles are performed. The main tools used to study these particles are lasers, and external electric and magnetic fields. The experiments are typically done in a very well controlled environment, shielded from all unwanted background. By doing this, the subtle effects of quantum physics become visible, and these atoms, ions, molecules and nanoparticles can be used for a range of exciting experiments.

For more information:
http://stevenhoekstra.owlstown.net
http://www.eedm.nl

Anastasia Borschevsky has received her PhD from the Tel Aviv University (Israel). She has worked as a postdoc at Massey University (New Zealand) and at the GSI, Germany, before starting her permanent position at the van Swinderen Institute, University of Groningen. She is an expert in high accuracy relativistic calculations of electronic structure or atoms and molecules. Her research focus is on accurate predictions of spectroscopic properties and on use of atoms and molecules in testing the Standard Model and in searching for new physical phenomena.  Borschevsky group has extensive experience in collaborating with experimental teams and her work provides support and basis for the planning and interpretation of various challenging experiments.

• Prof. dr. Lukas Pastecka

To apply, kindly fill out the online application form. Please note that you will be asked to upload the following documents:

• Curriculum Vitae (max. 1 page)
• Motivation letter, clearly stating why you want to join this summer school, what you will bring to the school and what you hope to learn (max. 1 page)

The applications are closed.