Several proposed interactions beyond the Standard model lead to a spin coupling that can be searched for with a sensitive magnetometer. Very high sensitivity has been achieved in an alkali-metal magnetometer by eliminating a dominant source of relaxation caused by spin-exchange collisions. We also developed a co-magnetometer comparing spin precession of an alkali-metal and a noble gas to cancel signals from ordinary magnetic fields. Several applications of atomic magnetometers, such as detection of brain magnetic fields, detection of NMR and NQR, and a sensitive nuclear spin gyroscope, will also be briefly discussed.

Contact: Luis Orozco