Testing fundamental physics with cold molecules
Professor E. A. Hinds (Centre for Cold Matter, Imperial College London)

Sensitive measurements on cold atoms and molecules can detect interactions at the atto-volt level and can provide information about new physics at very high energies – from TeV up to the Planck energy. I will describe some of these ideas, with particular emphasis on two topics: (i) the search for a permanent electric dipole moment of the electron and (ii) the search for dark energy. In both cases, existing experiments already impose strong constraints on possible new physics, and new experiments promise to improve these constraints hugely. I will discuss the recent advances in these area and the extraordinary sensitivity that they bring to tests of fundamental physics.