Enhanced sensitivity of the electron electric dipole moment from YbOH: The role of theory

Abstract

The prospect of laser cooling of polyatomic molecules has opened a new avenue in the search for the electric dipole moment of the electron (eEDM). An upper bound on the eEDM would probe new physics arising from beyond the Standard Model of elementary particles. In this work, we report the first theoretical results for the effective electric field experienced by the electron in YbOH, and its molecular electric dipole moment, using a relativistic coupled cluster theory. We compare these two properties of YbOH with YbF, which also has a singly unoccupied orbital on the Yb ion. We also present the results of the effective electric field for different bond angles, which sheds light on the sensitivity that can be expected from an eEDM experiment with YbOH.

Electronic structure of the ytterbium monohydroxide molecule to search for axionlike particles

“…This molecular constant is the analog of the effective electric field and the molecular constant W T,P , which are used to interpret experiments to search for T, P-violating atomic and molecular EDMs in terms of the electron electric dipole moment and the scalar-pseudoscalar nucleus-electron interaction constant (see, e.g., Refs. [28,29,[34][35][36][37][38][39]). Note, however, that in the present case W (eN ) ax depends on the axion mass.…”

“…This is the way to increase the coherence time and, thus, to improve the sensitivity of the experiment as the uncertainty of the measured energy characteristic is inversely proportional to the coherence time. For this reason, the ytterbium monohydroxide (YbOH) molecule has been intensively considered for the T, P-violating effects search by several theoretical groups [26][27][28][29][30].…”

Laser-cooled polyatomic molecules for improved electron electric dipole moment searches

“…Thus, a class of molecules has been identified where a precision measurement with trapped polyatomic molecules, e.g. 174 YbOH, could probe CP-violating BSM physics at the PeV scale in a near-term experiment [13,23,24]. Trapped molecules present many other practical advantages to future eEDM experiments.…”

The Role of Relativistic Many-Body Theory in Electron Electric Dipole Moment Searches Using Cold Molecules

“…Contrary to expectation, our results show that the DF effective electric field could vary significantly in a low-lying bent mode, between about 13 and 18 GV/cm, and also shows an oscillatory behaviour, for the chosen points. For further details, refer to [76].…”