Towards the electron EDM search: Theoretical study of HfF+

Abstract

We report first ab initio relativistic correlation calculations of potential curves for ten low-lying electronic states, effective electric field on the electron and hyperfine constants for the ^3Δ_1 state of cation of a heavy transition metal fluoride, HfF^+, that is suggested to be used as the working state in experiments to search for the electric dipole moment of the electron. It is shown that HfF^+ has deeply bound ^1Σ^+ ground state, its dissociation energy is D_e=6.4 eV. The ^3Δ_1 state is obtained to be the relatively long-lived first excited state lying about 0.2 eV higher. The calculated effective electric field E_eff=W_d|Ω| acting on an electron in this state is 5.84*10^{24}Hz/(e*cm)

4 pages