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)Delta(1), is the electronic ground state, and thus is immune to decoherence from spontaneous decay. We perform spectroscopy on X-3 Delta(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 X-3 Delta(1). We perform ab initio calculations, compare them to our results, and discuss prospects for using ThF+ in an eEDM experiment at JILA.