Progress towards an electron EDM measurement using Cesium atoms

Observation of a permanent electron electric dipole moment (eEDM) would imply time reversal symmetry violating effects not contained in the Standard Model. We have constructed an apparatus designed to measure the EDM of laser-cooled Cesium (Cs) atoms trapped in optical lattices. We will describe our measurement scheme and discuss preliminary results for a related measurement on the ground state tensor polarizability (GSTP) of Cs. The GSTP measurement, which will represent more than an order of magnitude increase in precision over current experiments, provides a challenge to atomic theory, some aspects of which relate to atomic parity violation measurements. It also shares many systematic effects in common with the eEDM measurement. We anticipate an ultimate shot noise limit of 4x10$^{\mathrm{-28}} \quad e·$cm of the atomic Cs EDM, which would correspond to a limit on the eEDM of 3x10$^{\mathrm{-30}} \quad e·$cm.