Candidate molecular ions for an electron electric dipole moment experiment

2006/04/25 by Edmund Meyer, Edmund R. Meyer, John L. Bohn +1 · 3 citations
Chemistry · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Chemical Physics Studies #Atomic and Molecular Physics #Mass Spectrometry Techniques and Applications #physics.atom-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreva.73.062108

25 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Physical Review A

arxiv created 2006/04/25 · openalex publication_date 2006/06/12 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

This paper is a theoretical work in support of a newly proposed experiment [R. Stutz and E. Cornell, Bull. Am. Soc. Phys. 89, 76 (2004)] that promises greater sensitivity to measurements of the electron's electric dipole moment (EDM) based on the trapping of molecular ions. Such an experiment requires the choice of a suitable molecule that is both experimentally feasible and possesses an expectation of a reasonable EDM signal. We find that the molecular ions PtH⁺ and HfH⁺ are both suitable candidates in their low-lying ³\ensuremathΔ states. In particular, we anticipate that the effective electric fields generated inside these molecules are approximately 73 and \ensuremath-17\phantom\rule0.3em0exGV∕cm, respectively. As a byproduct of this discussion, we also explain how to make estimates of the size of the effective electric field acting in a molecule, using commercially available nonrelativistic molecular structure software.

Citations

• Enhancement of the Electric Dipole Moment of the Electron in PbO
• Ab initio energy-adjusted pseudopotentials for elements of groups 13–17

Cited by

• Search for new physics with atoms and molecules
• Formation of cold molecular ions by radiative processes in cold ion-atom collisions
• The electric dipole moment of the electron: An intuitive explanation for the evasion of Schiff’s theorem