Thursday, September 17, 2009, 16:00
WHGA Auditorium
B. Sauer, Imperial College London
Abstract:
The standard model of particle physics predicts that the permanent
electric dipole moment (EDM) of the electron is very nearly zero. A
non-zero value would violate time reversal symmetry. Many extensions to
the standard model predict an electron EDM just below current
experimental limits, thus there is great interest in new experiments and
in improving current experimental precision. It has long been known that
polar molecules containing heavy (high-Z) atoms, like YbF, can amplify
the intrinsic electron EDM and are therefore ideal systems in which to
search for this new physics.
I will discuss an experiment to measure the electron EDM using YbF molecules that is underway at Imperial College London. The experiment uses a form of laser-radiofrequency double resonance spectroscopy to search for very small energy differences between hyperfine levels in a strong electric field. In addition to describing our experimental and analysis techniques, I will also give an overview of other atomic and molecular EDM searches around the world.