Knowledge Bank

We are developing an experiment to search for the permanent electric dipole moment (EDM) of the electron using the valence electrons in the $X3\Delta 1$ ground state of Tungsten Carbide (WC) molecules. Currently, we are detecting the molecules by Laser Induced Fluorescence spectroscopy at $\sim$75cm downstream of a pulsed ablation beam source. We have a detection rate of $\sim$10 $\mathrm{<mrow\; data-mjx-texclass="ORD">182</mrow>}$W$\mathrm{<mrow\; data-mjx-texclass="ORD">12</mrow>}$C molecules/second in $X3\Delta 1$, v"=0, J"=1 state with geometric detection efficiency of 0.004. A continuous WC molecular beam is under development. Additionally, preliminary measurements of the $\mathrm{<mrow\; data-mjx-texclass="ORD">183</mrow>}$W$\mathrm{<mrow\; data-mjx-texclass="ORD">12</mrow>}$C hyperfine structure will be presented.