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One year with laser-cooled radium ions

We are fragments from an explosion at the beginning of the Universe, the Big Bang.  This event produced matter and antimatter in equal parts, but somewhat surprisingly after recombination there was a bit of matter left over, allowing us to exist.  An as yet undiscovered source of time violation in the laws of physics could explain this asymmetry between matter and antimatter in the universe.  Searching for permanent electric dipole moments in molecules with heavy atoms is one promising avenue to shed light on the matter-antimatter asymmetry.  To this end I will discuss our labs efforts to control the heaviest alkaline earth element, radium, and its application to matter-antimatter asymmetry, as well as its potential for an optical clock.  I will present measurements since the first laser cooling of radium ions in the summer of 2018.

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