JEONGWON LEE, JINHAI CHEN AND AARON LEANHARDT, Department of Physics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109.
We are developing an experiment to search for the permanent electric dipole moment (EDM) of the electron using the valence electrons in the X3 1 ground state of Tungsten Carbide (WC) molecules. Currently, we are detecting the molecules by Laser Induced Fluorescence spectroscopy at 75cm downstream of a pulsed ablation beam source. We have a detection rate of 10 182W12C molecules/second in X3 1, v"=0, J"=1 state with geometric detection efficiency of 0.004. A continuous WC molecular beam is under development. Additionally, preliminary measurements of the 183W12C hyperfine structure will be presented.