Precision Measurement of Nuclear Magnetic and Electric Dipole Moments using Spin-Precession in Ultralow Fields

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By precision measurements of the nuclear spin precession of polarized noble gases in ultra-low magnetic fields, we intend to address two open problems in fundamental physics: the origin of the dominance of matter over antimatter in the universe and the probing of the temporal stability of fundamental constants.The existence of a finite electric dipole moment of a nucleus like 129Xe, d(Xe), would indicate a significant CP-violation that could have caused the baryon-antibaryon asymmetry in todays universe. The interaction of the postulated nuclear electric dipole moment with an additionally applied electric field would shift the precession frequency from the pure Larmor frequency by an amount that is proportional to d(Xe). By using 3He-129Xe comagnetometry, we expect to reduce the currently accepted upper limit for d(Xe) by at least one order of magnitude.By the simultaneous measurement of 3He and 129Xe precession, we intend to measure the ratio of the two nuclear magnetic moments with an utmost precision. In this way we can probe the stability of the quark mass and in units of the quantum chromdynamic scale parameter.This project is closely connected to the nEDM-proposal of Peter Fierlinger from TU Munich, with whom we have collaborated in the course of the DFG priority programme.