<p>Axion-like particles (ALPs) arise from well-motivated extensions to the Standard Model and could account for dark matter. ALP dark matter would manifest as a field oscillating at an (as of yet) unknown frequency. The frequency depends linearly on the ALP mass and plausibly ranges from 10<sup>−22</sup> to 10 eV/<i>c</i><sup>2</sup>. This motivates broadband search approaches. We report on a direct search for ALP dark matter with an interferometer composed of two atomic K-Rb-<sup>3</sup>He comagnetometers, one situated in Mainz, Germany, and the other in Kraków, Poland. We leverage the anticipated spatio-temporal coherence properties of the ALP field and probe all ALP-gradient-spin interactions covering a mass range of nine orders of magnitude. No significant evidence of an ALP signal is found. We thus place new upper limits on the ALP-neutron, ALP-proton and ALP-electron couplings reaching below <i>g</i><sub><i>a</i><i>N</i><i>N</i></sub> &lt; 10<sup>−9</sup> GeV<sup>−1</sup>, <i>g</i><sub><i>a</i><i>P</i><i>P</i></sub> &lt; 10<sup>−7</sup> GeV<sup>−1</sup> and <i>g</i><sub><i>a</i><i>e</i><i>e</i></sub> &lt; 10<sup>−6</sup> GeV<sup>−1</sup>, respectively. These limits improve upon previous laboratory constraints for neutron and proton couplings by up to three orders of magnitude.</p>

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Searching for dark matter with a spin-based interferometer

  • Daniel Gavilan-Martin,
  • Grzegorz Łukasiewicz,
  • Mikhail Padniuk,
  • Emmanuel Klinger,
  • Magdalena Smolis,
  • Nataniel L. Figueroa,
  • Derek F. Jackson Kimball,
  • Alexander O. Sushkov,
  • Szymon Pustelny,
  • Dmitry Budker,
  • Arne Wickenbrock

摘要

Axion-like particles (ALPs) arise from well-motivated extensions to the Standard Model and could account for dark matter. ALP dark matter would manifest as a field oscillating at an (as of yet) unknown frequency. The frequency depends linearly on the ALP mass and plausibly ranges from 10−22 to 10 eV/c2. This motivates broadband search approaches. We report on a direct search for ALP dark matter with an interferometer composed of two atomic K-Rb-3He comagnetometers, one situated in Mainz, Germany, and the other in Kraków, Poland. We leverage the anticipated spatio-temporal coherence properties of the ALP field and probe all ALP-gradient-spin interactions covering a mass range of nine orders of magnitude. No significant evidence of an ALP signal is found. We thus place new upper limits on the ALP-neutron, ALP-proton and ALP-electron couplings reaching below gaNN < 10−9 GeV−1, gaPP < 10−7 GeV−1 and gaee < 10−6 GeV−1, respectively. These limits improve upon previous laboratory constraints for neutron and proton couplings by up to three orders of magnitude.