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FRI: Friday Contributed Sessions
FRI 9: Fundamental Quantum Tests
FRI 9.2: Talk
Friday, September 12, 2025, 11:00–11:15, ZHG101
99 years old and going stronger than ever: the molecular hydrogen ion — Stephan Schiller1, •Soroosh Alighanbari1, Magnus Schenkel1, Vladimir Korobov2, and Jean-Philippe Karr3 — 1Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf — 2Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna — 3LKB, Sorbonne Université; Université d’ Evry-Val d’ Essonne
At the end of 1926, the same year that Schrödinger presented his wave equation, it was applied for the first time to a molecule, the molecular hydrogen ion (MHI) by Burrau. Even famous physicists (Pauli, Teller, Herzberg, Dehmelt, Lamb) worked on the topic at some time. Nevertheless, for the first 70 years, it did not appear that this family of three-body systems would become of much relevance to fundamental physics - it was too difficult to handle, experimentally and computationally. However, thanks to the efforts of a few reserach teams, today the precision physics of the MHI is entering center stage. MHIs are beginning to contribute to the determination of fundamental constants, tests of quantum physics, and the search for new interparticle forces. Furthermore, the perspective of comparing vibrational transitions in H2+ and its antimatter counterpart could lead to novel and ultra-accurate tests of CPT invariance.
MHIs are today studied with some of the most advanced techniques, such as sympathetic laser cooling, rotational laser cooling, quantum logic spectroscopy, Penning-Malmberg traps, frequency-comb-based optical metrology, cw-optical parametric oscillators. A bright future of high-accuracy results still lies ahead.
Keywords: molecule; spectroscopy; fundamental constants; antimatter; frequency comb