Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics Seminar

The search for an electric dipole moment of the electron (e-EDM) was initiated a half century ago. The existence of a non-zero e-EDM would violate both time-reversal and parity symmetry. Although the standard model predicts an e-EDM far too small to detect, Supersymmetric models predict a value for the e-EDM in range of current experimental limits. The lead monofluoride molecule has many features that may prove to be advantageous to a measurement of the e-EDM. Among these features are its insensitivity to background magnetic fields and a large internal electric field. An understanding of the ground state electronic structure of PbF is critical to realization of an experimental measurement. Here we present experimental determination of the hyperfine constants of PbF.