Interpreting the Electron EDM Constraint

The ACME collaboration has recently announced a new constraint on the electron EDM, $|d_e| < 1.1 \times 10^{-29}\, e\, {\rm cm}$. This is a powerful constraint on CP-violating new physics: even new physics generating the EDM at two loops is constrained at the multi-TeV scale. I will interpret the electron EDM bound through first a general order-of-magnitude analysis, then discussions of two specific scenarios: one is SUSY, where new physics involves the electroweak sector and couples to the Higgs. The other is the "QULE operators", $(q_f \bar{\sigma}^{\mu \nu}{\bar u}_f) \cdot (\ell {\bar{\sigma}}_{\mu \nu} {\bar e})$, where new physics couples to the charm or top quark. The electron EDM bound is the leading constraint on a wide variety of theories of CP-violating new physics. I will also briefly discuss the implications of future improvements in EDM searches.