Physics Colloquium

Everything in the universe, as far as we can see, is made of matter. The Big Bang should have created equal amounts of matter and anti-matter, yet there is no natural anti-matter anywhere. The reason for this asymmetry is one of the big puzzles in fundamental physics, and its origin is expected to lie in undiscovered physics beyond the Standard Model.

Remarkably, it turns out that plain old electrons can behave like a very sensitive "antenna", to probe the new physics responsible for our asymmetric universe. And embedding these electrons within atoms and molecules further amplifies their sensitivity. All this puts the discovery of new physics (almost) within the reach of precise atomic & molecular experiments.

I will give a simple introduction to this field of precision physics, and describe some of our dreams and experiments at Toronto.