Measurement of the Λ electric dipole moment with an entangled baryon-antibaryon system.

BESIII Collaboration†; Ablikim, M; Achasov, M N; Adlarson, P; Ai, X C; Aliberti, R; Amoroso, A; An, Q et al. · Science · 2026

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

The dominance of matter over antimatter in the Universe has consistently driven the pursuit of new physics beyond the Standard Model that violates charge-parity symmetry. Strange baryons (hyperons) remain a largely unexplored territory in which interactions between hyperons and particles from new physics could induce a nontrivial electric dipole moment (EDM). However, direct measurements of hyperon EDMs through spin precession are highly challenging owing to their short lifetimes. In this work, we introduce a method to extract the EDM of the lightest hyperon, Λ, using the entangled [Formula: see text] system. Our result is consistent with zero, achieving a three-orders-of-magnitude improvement over the previous upper limit established in the 1980s with comparable statistics, providing stringent constraints on potential new physics.