The electron’s electric dipole moment

The standard model of particle theory predicts a nonzero electric dipole moment (EDM) for the electron. But it’s far too small to detect with present techniques. However, the leading theoretical proposals for new physics beyond the manifestly incomplete standard model predict much larger electron EDMs that would verge on what’s measurable today. Now a team at Imperial College London has used an innovative molecular-beam technique to determine the tightest upper limit yet on the electron’s EDM.