On the sensitivity of nuclear clocks to new physics

The recent demonstration of laser excitation of the ≈ 8 eV isomeric state of thorium-229 is a significant step towards a nuclear clock. The low excitation energy likely results from a cancellation between the contributions of the electromagnetic and strong forces. Physics beyond the Standard Model could disrupt this cancellation, highlighting nuclear clocks' sensitivity to new physics. Accurate predictions of the different contributions to nuclear transition energies, and therefore of the quantitative sensitivity of a nuclear clock, are challenging. We improve upon previous sensitivity estimates and assess a ”nightmare scenario”, where all binding energy differences are small and the new physics sensitivity is poor. A classical geometric model of thorium-229 suggests that fine-tuning is needed for such a scenario. We also propose a d-wave halo model, inspired by effective field theory. We show that it reproduces observations and suggests the ”nightmare scenario” is unlikely. We find that the nuclear clock's sensitivity to variations in the effective fine structure constant is enhanced by a factor of order 10^4. We finally propose auxiliary nuclear measurements to reduce uncertainties and further test the validity of the halo model.