Constraining CP Violating Nucleon-Nucleon Long-Range Interactions in Diatomic eEDM Searches

Abstract

The searches for CP violating effects in diatomic molecules, such as HfF+ and ThO, are typically interpreted as a probe of the electron’s electric dipole moment (eEDM), a new electron-nucleon interaction, and a new electron-electron interaction. However, in the case of a nonvanishing nuclear spin, a new CP violating nucleon-nucleon long-range force will also affect the measurement, providing a new interpretation of the eEDM experimental results. Here, we use the HfF+ eEDM search and derive a new bound on this hypothetical interaction, which is the most stringent from terrestrial experiments in the 1 eV–10 keV mass range. These multiple new physics sources motivate independent searches in different molecular species for CP violation at low energy that result in model independent bounds, which are insensitive to cancellation among them. Published by the American Physical Society 2024