Theoretical Aspects of Radium-Containing Molecules Amenable to Assembly from Laser-Cooled Atoms for New Physics Searches

Abstract

We explore the possibilities for a next-generation electron-electric-dipole-moment experiment using ultracold heteronuclear diatomic molecules assembled from a combination of radium and another laser-coolable atom. In particular, we calculate their ground state structure and their sensitivity to parity- and time-reversal ($\mathcal{P},\mathcal{T}$) violating physics arising from flavor-diagonal charge-parity ($\mathcal{C}\mathcal{P}$) violation. Among these species, the largest $\mathcal{P},\mathcal{T}$-violating molecular interaction constants -- associated for example with the electron electric dipole moment -- are obtained for the combination of radium (Ra) and silver (Ag) atoms. A mechanism for explaining this finding is proposed. We go on to discuss the prospects for an electron EDM search using ultracold, assembled, optically trapped RaAg molecules, and argue that this system is particularly promising for rapid future progress in the search for new sources of $\mathcal{C}\mathcal{P}$ violation.

Added reference [6]; Created subsubsections "Trends'' and "Comparison of Models and with the Literature''; Reference [36] (now reference [37]) corrected; Formatting errors for molecules in references fixed

References in corpus (14)

• Cold molecules: Progress in Quantum Engineering of Chemistry and Quantum Matter
• Flavour physics of leptons and dipole moments
• Precision Measurement of Time-Reversal Symmetry Violation with Laser-Cooled Polyatomic Molecules
• New frontiers with quantum gases of polar molecules
• Time-Reversal-Based Quantum Metrology with Many-Body Entangled States
• Laser-trapping of Ra-225 and Ra-226 with repumping by room temperature blackbody radiation
• Creation of ultracold Sr2 molecules in the electronic ground state
• Rotational Coherence Times of Polar Molecules in Optical Tweezers
• Ab initio study of radium monofluoride, RaF, as a candidate to search for P- and T,P- violation effects
• Three-dimensional Doppler, polarization-gradient, and magneto-optical forces for atoms and molecules with dark states
• Highly polar molecules consisting of a copper or silver atom interacting with an alkali-metal or alkaline-earth-metal atom
• Merits of Heavy-Heavy Molecules for Electron Electric Dipole Moment Searches
• Laser control of ultracold molecule formation: The case of RbSr
• Robust storage qubits in ultracold polar molecules

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Standard Model prediction for paramagnetic EDMs