THE ELECTRIC-DIPOLE MOMENT OF THE ELECTRON

Recent experimental progress in the search for atomic electric dipole moments (EDMs) d(A) of cesium and thallium leads in particular to a substantially increased sensitivity to a possible electron EDM d(e) compared with existing upper bounds. Further considerable improvement in the measurement of d(Tl) is likely. After a brief synopsis of the theory of atomic EDMs, the authors discuss-in view of the expected experimental sensitivity to d(e) - the predictions for the electron EDM in various models of CP violation.