Science· 2013Q1
Order of Magnitude Smaller Limit on the Electric Dipole Moment of the Electron
- 1,025citations
- Q1SCImago
- 2013year
Short summary
A new measurement sets an electron electric dipole moment (EDM) limit 10x smaller than previous bests, ruling out some extensions to the Standard Model.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Key points
- The electron's electric dipole moment (EDM) was measured using electron spin precession in ThO molecules.
- The measured EDM was found to be consistent with zero.
- This experiment sets a new upper limit on the electron EDM, 10x smaller than previous limits.
- The result excludes some extensions to the Standard Model and constrains searches in other facilities.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
Stubbornly Spherical The shape of the electron's charge distribution reflects the degree to which switching the direction of time impacts the basic ingredients of the universe. The Standard Model (SM) of particle physics predicts a very slight asphericity of the charge distribution, whereas SM extensions such as supersymmetry posit bigger and potentially measurable, but still tiny, deviations from a perfect sphere. Polar molecules have been identified as ideal settings for measuring this asymmetry, which should be reflected in a finite electric dipole moment (EDM) because of the extremely large effective electric fields that act on an electron inside such molecules. Using electron spin precession in the molecule ThO, Baron et al. (p. 269 , published online 19 December; see the cover; see the Perspective by Brown ) measured the EDM of the electron as consistent with zero. This excludes some of the extensions to the SM and sets a bound to the search for a nonzero EDM in other facilities, such as the Large Hadron Collider.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Science, 2013 · DOI ↗
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Field: Nuclear and High Energy Physics
Nuclear and High Energy PhysicsPhysics and Astronomy