MSSM predictions for the electric dipole moment of the Hg-199 atom

The Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model can possess several CP-violating phases beyond the conventional Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa phase. We calculat e the contribution of these phases to T-violating nuclear forces. These for ces induce a Schiff moment in the Hg-199 nucleus, which;is strongly limited by experiments aimed at the detection of the electric dipole moment of the mercury atom. The result for d(Hg) is found to be very sensitive to the CP -violating phases of the MSSM and the calculation carries far fewer QCD unc ertainties than the corresponding calculation of the neutron EDM, In certai n regions of the MSSM parameter space, the limit from the mercury EDM is st ronger than previous constraints based on either the neutron or electron ED Ms, We present combined constraints from the mercury and electron EDMs to l imit both CP-violating phases of the MSSM, We also present limits in mSUGRA models with unified gaugino and scalar masses at the GUT scale. (C) 1999 E lsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.