The Amazing Electron and it Moments: Most Precise Tests of the Standard Model and Proposed Fixes

The Standard Model of particle physics is the great triumph and great frustration of modern physics. It predicts the value of the electron magnetic moment -- the most precisely measured property of an elementary particle -- to better than a part per trillion. Yet, it cannot explain why a universe made of matter survived the big bang, nor can it yet explain dark matter or dark energy. A number of adjustments to the Standard Model have been proposed. To test these our ACME collaboration recently completed a 12 times more sensitive measurement of the electron's electric dipole moment. The Standard Model predicts a moment too small to measure, while proposed adjustments (e.g. supersymmetric models) generally cannot avoid predicting an electric dipole moment that could be within range of this new measurement sensitivity.