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Polarimetric searches for axion dark matter and high-frequency gravitational waves using optical cavities

Camilo García-Cely1, Luca Marsili1, Andreas Ringwald2, and Aaron D. Spector2

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Phys. Rev. D 112, 023031 – Published 22 July, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/26vg-wcfx

Abstract

We revisit birefringence effects associated with the evolution of the polarization of light as it propagates through axion dark matter or the background of a passing gravitational wave (GW). We demonstrate that this can be described by a unified formalism, highlighting a synergy between searches for axions and high-frequency GWs. We show that by exploiting this framework, the optical cavities used by the ALPS II experiment can potentially probe axion masses in the range ma∼10−9–10−6  eV, offering competitive sensitivity with existing laboratory and astrophysical searches. Also building on this approach, we propose using these optical cavities to search for high-frequency GWs by measuring changes in the polarization of their circulating laser fields. This makes it a promising method for exploring, in the near future, GWs with frequencies above 100 MHz and strain sensitivities on the order of 10−14  Hz−1/2. Such sensitivity allows the exploration of currently unconstrained parameter space, complementing other high-frequency GW experiments. This work contributes to the growing community investigating novel approaches for high-frequency GW detection.

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Phys. Rev. D 112, 023031– Published 22 July, 2025
  • Received 28 January 2025
  • Accepted 15 June 2025
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

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