Electronic structure of the ytterbium monohydroxide molecule to search for axionlike particles
D. E. Maison, V. V. Flambaum, Nicholas R. Hutzler, L. V. Skripnikov
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 mediated by axionlike particles. The electron-nucleus interaction produced by the axion exchange can contribute to a $T,P$-violating 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.