Towards a Nuclear Schiff Moment Search with Cold Neutral Beams of ²²⁷ThO Molecules

Thorium monoxide molecules have been demonstrated to be an extremely sensitive probe for beyond Standard Model searches through time reversal violating permanent electron electric dipole moments (eEDM). The success of current ThO experiments in constraining the eEDM motivates similar beam experiments with radioactive molecules. These contain octupole-deformed nuclei, such as ²²⁷Th, which are sensitive to nuclear Schiff moment searches. The strong intra-molecular electric field of polar molecules, in combination with heavily octupole-deformed nuclei, could produce up to 6 orders of magnitude enhancements to hadronic EDMs beyond the sensitivity of atomic systems. At QuEST Lab in the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) we are capitalizing on the existing wealth of knowledge in ThO spectroscopy, and techniques in its quantum control and sensing. Additionally, we have been making progress towards the synthesis, photon cycling, quantum state preparation, and readout of ²²⁷ThO. This ²²⁷ThO molecular beam experiment aims to make a ten-fold improvement on the bound of θ_QCD from current limit set by the ¹⁹⁹Hg EDM measurement.