Project background
In this experiment, we are searching for a permanent electric dipole moment (EDM) of the electron. Classically, an EDM corresponds to the distortion of a spherical charge distribution. The electron is a point charge, as far as physicists can tell, but it could still have an analog to the classical EDM just as it has the analogs to a classical spin and magentic dipole moment.
The discovery of the EDM, even if tiny, would have major reprocusions on the mathematical models of particle physics. There are many models, but the currently accepted theory is called the Standard Model of particle physics. The Standard Model predicts an electron EDM much smaller than the one we could measure in the near future. However, this model has some unsatisfactory features and theorists have generated alternatives with some of the desired properties. So far, experimental results have been consistent with the Standard Model, so there has been no evidence as to which, if any, of these alternate theories are valid. In general, these alternate theories predict a considerably larger electron EDM which is in range of the current experimental techniques.
Either the EDM will be discovered in the current range, which would be evidence for physics beyond what is described by the Standard Model, or the EDM will be found to be smaller than is comfortably predicted by the alternate theories, which forces the theorists back to their pens and paper.