Fundamental Physics in Space with Quantum Sensors

Organizers:

Emily Caldwell, National Institute of Standards and Technology
Paul Hamilton, University of California Los Angeles
David Leibrandt, University of California Los Angeles

The space environment has long offered unique conditions and opportunities to explore fundamental physics beyond the Standard Model with quantum sensors, dating back to Gravity Probe A in 1976. The current coming of age of quantum technology has yielded new types of quantum sensors with orders of magnitude improved precision including atomic clocks with fractional precision and accuracy below 10^(-18) and atom interferometers targeting equivalence principle test precision below 10^(-17). These sensors have the potential to make breakthrough discoveries about the nature of gravity, dark matter, and dark energy, explore quantum mechanics in new regimes enabled by microgravity, and perform gravitational wave astronomy in frequency bands outside the reach of LIGO or upcoming LISA experiments, among other applications called out in the 2023 NASA Biological & Physical Sciences Decadal Survey. The goal of this meeting is to bring together the fundamental physics, quantum sensor, and space instrument communities in order to brainstorm ideas for space missions with quantum sensors that can shed light on fundamental physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM).