Enhancement of the Electric Dipole Moment of the Electron in PbO

The $a(1)$ state of PbO can be used to measure the electric dipole moment of the electron dₑ. We discuss a semiempirical model for this state, which yields an estimate of the effective electric field on the valence electrons in PbO. Our final result is a lower limit on the measurable energy shift, which is significantly larger than was anticipated earlier: 2|Wd|dₑ≥2.4×10²⁵ Hz[dₑe cm].