Physical Society Colloquium

Superconducting Quantum Sensors and Rare Isotope Decay: Model-Independence in our Search for Physics Beyond the Standard Model

Kyle Leach

Department of Physics
Colorado School of Mines

The development of the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics has been one of the crowning achievements in modern science, and is the cornerstone of current subatomic studies. Despite its tremendous success, decades of experimental work have exposed areas where the SM fails (neutrino masses) and regions where hints of new physics may reveal a portal to the dark sector. Making sense of the experimental landscape, however, remains challenging as we have entered an era in our search for physics beyond the SM (BSM) that is littered with statistical anomalies in the data, emphasizing the need for definitive, model independent experiments. We have begun to piece together the trail that follows these anomalies, and are guided by new theoretical work that provides tantalizing ways to resolve many outstanding questions in physics by incorporating dark matter and massive neutrinos into the SM. To achieve this, we have developed a novel, model-independent approach to create and measure a wide range of new physics in the laboratory via the decay of unstable atomic nuclei inside high-rate quantum sensors. Our work in this area is heavily interdisciplinary, and requires effort throughout a number of scientific fields including quantum engineering, materials science, atomic/nuclear theory, and high-energy particle/astroparticle physics. In this talk, I will describe our approach to model-independent BSM physics searches in superconducting tunnel junctions (STJs) within the context of our international experimental programs including the BeEST and SALER.