Parity non-conservation is an important aspect of the weak interaction, which in turn is one of the cornerstones of the standard model of elementary particle physics. In spite of this, not many quantitative studies have been made of the phenomenon, in particular not at very low energies, using atomic systems. Improvement and extension of the existing data would provide insight to the limits of the standard model, potentially open up for observations of physics beyond the standard model, and might give keys to dark matter physics.

The absence of precise data stems from the fact that the effect is very small. One route for studies is to look at extremely high energies. An alternative approach, which will be the one adopted in this talk, is to trade extreme energies for extreme precision, using atomic physics and laser spectroscopy techniques. 

In this talk, I will present an idea to measure parity violation, specifically for Cs, using a combination of laser cooling, tailor made optical lattices and precision spectroscopy. It really started as just a suggestion for an experiment, but it is today a funded project led by my colleagues at the University of Tokyo.

My talk will be quite technical and informal. I will not spend so much time talking about the background, but I will focus on the actual experimental aspects. The latter are predominately related to cold atom physics techniques, and precision spectroscopy.

Optical-lattice-based method for precise measurements of atomic parity violation, 

A. Kastberg, T. Aoki, B. K. Sahoo, Y. Sakemi, and B. P. Das; 

Phys. Rev. A 100, 050101(R)