Progress towards precision measurements of β-decay correlation parameters using atom and ion traps

The correlations of the decay products following the β decay of nuclei have a long history of providing a low-energy probe of the fundamental symmetries of our universe. Over half a century ago, the correlation of the electrons following the decay of polarized ⁶⁰Co demonstrated that parity is not conserved in weak interactions. Today, the same basic idea continues to be applied to search for physics beyond the standard model: make precision measurements of correlation parameters and look for deviations compared to their standard model predictions. Efforts to measure these parameters to the 0.1% level utilizing atom and ion trapping techniques are described.