Search for a permanent electric dipole moment in 129Xe using simultaneous 3He magnetometry

This dissertation presents the first results of a new technique designed to search for a permanent electric dipole moment (PEDM) in 129Xe. An observed non-zero PEDM in 129Xe would be direct evidence of time-reversal and parity symmetry violation. Unlike previous experiments which search for a PEDM, this one has used a second atomic species, 3He, as an in situ magnetometer to reduce the possibility of observing a false PEDM caused by an artifact of the experiment. The measurement described in this work searches for a change in the 129Xe precession frequency when 129Xe spins are allowed to freely precess in an applied magnetic field and are subjected to an applied electric field which is alternately parallel or anti-parallel to the applied magnetic field. The 3He and 129Xe free precession signals were simultaneously processed by two different detection schemes. The null results of d129 = (-2.51 ± 11.1) · 10-26 e-cm and d129 = (-4.81 ± 11.0) · 10-26 e-cm were found for a PEDM in 129Xe using the data collected by these two schemes. These values were derived from data collected during 33 hours out of a total of 132 hours of operation of the experiment; 99 hours were spent preparing the 3He and 129Xe spins. The precision of this measurement was chiefly limited by interactions between the 3He and 129Xe atoms. The nature of these interactions is explained and ideas for improving this precision are presented