Spectroscopy on the electron-electric-dipole-moment-sensitive states of ThF+

An excellent candidate molecule for the measurement of the electron's electric dipole moment (eEDM) is thorium monofluoride (ThF+) because the eEDM-sensitive state, 3?1, is the electronic ground state, and thus is immune to decoherence from spontaneous decay. We perform spectroscopy on X3?1 to extract three spectroscopic constants crucial to the eEDM experiment: the hyperfine coupling constant, the molecular frame electric dipole moment, and the magnetic g factor. To understand the impact of thermal blackbody radiation on the vibrational ground state, we study the lifetime of the first excited vibrational manifold of X3?1. We perform ab initio calculations, compare them to our results, and discuss prospects for using ThF+ in an eEDM experiment at JILA.