Jul 17 – 22, 2022
Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto
America/Toronto timezone

An experiment to measure the electron's electric dipole moment using trapped ultracold molecules.

Jul 21, 2022, 5:00 PM
1h 30m
Hart House (Hart House)

Hart House

Hart House

7 Hart House Cir, Toronto, ON M5S 3H3
Poster presentation Precision measurement and tests of fundamental physics Poster session

Description

The large asymmetry between matter and antimatter in the Universe is a mystery. The formation of this extra matter requires charge parity (CP) violation beyond that contained in the standard model, and therefore points towards new physics [1]. The electron’s electric dipole moment (eEDM) is sensitive to this new physics. Precision measurement of the eEDM tests physics beyond the Standard Model and will expand our understanding of the fundamental principles of nature. We aim to improve the precision of the eEDM measurement by 3 orders of magnitude using an array of ultracold ytterbium monofluoride (YbF) molecules held in an optical lattice, measuring an eEDM on the order of 10$^{-32}$ e cm [2].

We produce a beam of YbF using a two stage cryogenic buffer gas source cooled to 2 K. In this source, YbF is formed by laser ablation of an ytterbium target in the presence of sulphur hexafluoride (SF6), and is then entrained in a flow of cold helium gas. We plan to decelerate these molecules using laser slowing, capture them in a magneto-optical trap, cool them to a few microkelvin and then load them into an optical lattice where spin coherence times of several seconds seem feasible. We will present the progress made towards generating a slow beam, initial laser slowing experiments and our plans for the future.

[1] Sakharov A D 1991 Sov. Phys. Usp. 34 392–3
[2] N J Fitch et al 2021 Quantum Sci. Technol. 6 014006

Presenter name Andrew D White
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Primary authors

Dr Andrew D White (Imperial College London) Mr Stefan Popa (Imperial College London) Dr Jorge Mellado Munoz (Imperial College London) Dr Jongseok Lim (Imperial College London) Dr Xavier Y Alauze (Imperial College London) Dr Chi Zhang (Imperial College London) Dr Noah J Fitch (Imperial College London) Prof. Ben E Sauer (Imperial College London) Prof. Michael R Tarbutt (Imperial College London)

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