Towards Measurements of Electroweak Nuclear Properties using Single Molecular Ions in a Penning Trap

We present the development of a novel Penning ion trap (NEPTUNE) for precision spectroscopy of symmetry-violating electroweak properties using single trapped molecular ions [1]. The high magnetic field of the Penning trap can be used to Zeeman shift two molecular states of opposite parity to near degeneracy, enhancing the sensitivity of parity-violating nuclear properties by more than 11 orders of magnitude [2]. Hence, our proposed experimental setup is expected to provide highly sensitive measurements of  symmetry violating nuclear properties across the nuclear chart. This contribution will describe the status of a cryogenic Penning trap for performing measurements in SiO+ molecules, as well as discuss future prospects of this technique. 

[1] J. Karthein, S. Udrescu, S. Moroch et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 133, 033003 (2024)

[2] Altuntas, E. et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 142501 (2018)