Magneto‐Optic Traps are Set for Radioactive Atoms

For years atomic and nuclear physicists have dreamed of doing experiments with dense, trapped gases of cold, neutral, radioactive atoms. With such samples they could perform precision spectroscopy of radioactive atoms, search for electric dipole moments (indicative of time‐reversalsymmetry violation), study parity violation and electroweak effects in atomic transitions and β decay, and more. As reported in a recent issue of Physical Review Letters, such experiments took a step (or perhaps three) closer to reality when groups at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, the State University of New York at Stony Brook and the University of Colorado demonstrated the feasibility of quickly and efficiently transporting and capturing large numbers of atoms from a vapor or an atomic beam.