The researchers used an ion trap to measure the electron electric dipole moment in hafnium fluoride ions
JILA and NIST Fellows Jun Ye and Eric Cornell's recent research on advancing electron electric dipole moment (eEDM) measurements have been highlighted in Physics World.
These measurements, which look at the most minute distortions in the electron's shape, could be the key to helping physicists find new particles beyond those described in the Standard Model of physics. “We are able to determine the eEDM by measuring the frequency difference of this wobble, once with the electron oriented in one direction and again with it in the other,” explains Trevor Wright in the Physics World article.
The article further explains that: "After 620 hours of data collection, during which the researchers changed multiple experimental parameters to investigate and reduce systematic errors, they reduced the upper limit on the electron EDM to 4.1×10-30 e cm. This is 37 times smaller than their own previous measurement and 2.4 times smaller than the previous best limit."
Read the full article here.
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