New experimental limit on the electric dipole moment of the electron in a paramagnetic insulator

We report results of an experimental search for the intrinsic electric dipole moment of the electron (eEDM) using a solid-state technique. The experiment employs a paramagnetic, insulating gadolinium gallium garnet (GGG) that has a large magnetic response at low temperatures. The presence of the eEDM would lead to a small but nonzero magnetization as the GGG sample is subjected to a strong electric field. We search for the resulting Stark-induced magnetization with a sensitive magnetometer. Recent progress on the suppression of several sources of background allows the experiment to run free of spurious signals at the level of the statistical uncertainties. We report our first limit on the eEDM of (-5.57 +/- 7.98 +/- 0.12) x 10(-25) e cm with 5 days of data averaging.