Enhancement of the electric dipole moment of the electron in PbO

Abstract

The a(1) state of PbO can be used to measure the electric dipole moment of the electron d_e. We discuss a semiempirical model for this state, which yields an estimate of the effective electric field on the valence electrons in PbO. Our final result is an upper limit on the measurable energy shift, which is significantly larger than was anticipated earlier: $ 2|W_d|d_e \ge 2.4\times 10^{25} \textrm{Hz} [ \frac{d_e}{e \textrm{cm}} ]$.