Electronic structure of ytterbium monohydroxide molecule to search for axionlike particles

TL;DR

This paper explores the potential of ytterbium monohydroxide (YbOH) molecules as a tool to detect axionlike particles by measuring T,P-violating effects induced by axion-electron and axion-nucleus interactions, expanding their use beyond eEDM searches.

Contribution

It demonstrates that YbOH molecules can be used to measure axion-electron and axion-nucleus coupling constants through T,P-violating energy shifts, providing a new method for axionlike particle detection.

Findings

YbOH can be used to detect axion-induced T,P-violating effects.

The energy shift depends on axion mass and coupling constants.

YbOH offers a new avenue for axionlike particle searches.

Abstract

Recently the YbOH molecule has been suggested as a candidate to search for the electron electric dipole moment (eEDM) which violates spatial parity (P) and time-reversal (T) symmetries [I. Kozyryev and N. R. Hutzler, Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 133002 (2017)]. In the present paper we show that the same system can be used to measure coupling constants of the interaction of electrons and nucleus with axionlike particles. The electron-nucleus interaction produced by the axion exchange induces T,P-violating a EDM of the whole molecular system. We express the corresponding T,P-violating energy shift produced by this effect in terms of the axion mass and product of the axion-nucleus and axion-electron coupling constants.