Session KP01 - Poster Session III.
POSTER session, Tuesday afternoon, March 23
Exhibit Hall, GWCC
Atomic Parity Violation experiments provide a powerful probe for possible new physics beyond the Standaed Model. A new experiment using a single trapped Ba^+ ion can provide improvements over existing atomic PNC experiments with increased sensitivity, easier analysis of systematic errors, and simpler atomic and nuclear structure.(Fortson, Phys. Rev. Let.) 70, 2383 (1993). The method involves measuring a parity induced splitting of the ground state magnetic sublevels in externally applied laser fields, and requires the ability to precisely manipulate and detect the spin state of a single ion. The techniques being developed to achieve this will be described, as well as recent results from their application to measuring light shifts in the 6S_1/2 and 5D_3/2 levels using either strong off resonant laser fields to generate dipole shifts that can be used to provide a precise test of atomic theory, or using light directly resonant with the S\to D transition to study the performance of the 2\mu m laser that will be used in the parity measurement, and to begin to investigate the ability to control certain classes of possibile systematic errors.