- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine

Physical Review D

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Open Access

Searching for long-lived ALPs with a laser-assisted optical dump

Tong Li*, Haolong Wang†, and Man Yuan‡

  • *Contact author: litong@nankai.edu.cn
  • †Contact author: 2120250183@mail.nankai.edu.cn
  • ‡Contact author: yuanman@mail.nankai.edu.cn
PDF

Phys. Rev. D 114, 075010 – Published 8 October, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/3khg-x3wl

Abstract

The feeble interactions of light axionlike particles (ALPs) render them long lived. Probing long-lived ALPs therefore demands facilities with a macroscopic decay volume to match their potentially long decay lengths, such as high-intensity beam dump experiments. An optical dump setup was proposed by utilizing hard photons from the collision of a high-energy electron beam and a high-intensity laser pulse. In this work, we revisit the probe of long-lived ALPs with MeV∼GeV mass via a laser-assisted optical dump. We consider the low-energy effective Lagrangian for ALPs incorporating the ALP-photon and ALP-fermion interactions. The scope of optical dump searches is extended to both the ALP-photon coupling induced Primakoff process and the Compton-like scattering via the ALP-electron coupling. We also investigate the correlation between the Primakoff process and Compton scattering, and exhibit the interplay of two ALP couplings in light of the optical dump experiment.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

References (127)

  1. R. D. Peccei and H. R. Quinn, Phys. Rev. Lett. 38, 1440 (1977).
  2. R. D. Peccei and H. R. Quinn, Phys. Rev. D 16, 1791 (1977).
  3. S. Weinberg, Phys. Rev. Lett. 40, 223 (1978).
  4. F. Wilczek, Phys. Rev. Lett. 40, 279 (1978).
  5. L. Di Luzio, M. Giannotti, E. Nardi, and L. Visinelli, Phys. Rep. 870, 1 (2020).
  6. M. I. Vysotsky, Y. B. Zeldovich, M. Y. Khlopov, and V. M. Chechetkin, Pis’ma Zh. Eksp. Teor. Fiz. 27, 533 (1978).
  7. S. Dimopoulos, Phys. Lett. 84B, 435 (1979).
  8. S. H. H. Tye, Phys. Rev. Lett. 47, 1035 (1981).
  9. A. R. Zhitnitsky, Sov. J. Nucl. Phys. 31, 260 (1980).
  10. M. Dine, W. Fischler, and M. Srednicki, Phys. Lett. 104B, 199 (1981).
  11. B. Holdom and M. E. Peskin, Nucl. Phys. B208, 397 (1982).
  12. D. B. Kaplan, Nucl. Phys. B260, 215 (1985).
  13. M. Srednicki, Nucl. Phys. B260, 689 (1985).
  14. J. M. Flynn and L. Randall, Nucl. Phys. B293, 731 (1987).
  15. M. Kamionkowski and J. March-Russell, Phys. Lett. B 282, 137 (1992).
  16. Z. Berezhiani, L. Gianfagna, and M. Giannotti, Phys. Lett. B 500, 286 (2001).
  17. S. D. H. Hsu and F. Sannino, Phys. Lett. B 605, 369 (2005).
  18. A. Hook, Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 141801 (2015).
  19. G. Alonso-Álvarez, M. B. Gavela, and P. Quilez, Eur. Phys. J. C 79, 223 (2019).
  20. A. Hook, S. Kumar, Z. Liu, and R. Sundrum, Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 221801 (2020).
  21. J. E. Kim, Phys. Rev. Lett. 43, 103 (1979).
  22. M. A. Shifman, A. I. Vainshtein, and V. I. Zakharov, Nucl. Phys. B166, 493 (1980).
  23. M. S. Turner, Phys. Rep. 197, 67 (1990).
  24. V. A. Rubakov, JETP Lett. 65, 621 (1997).
  25. H. Fukuda, K. Harigaya, M. Ibe, and T. T. Yanagida, Phys. Rev. D 92, 015021 (2015).
  26. T. Gherghetta, N. Nagata, and M. Shifman, Phys. Rev. D 93, 115010 (2016).
  27. S. Dimopoulos, A. Hook, J. Huang, and G. Marques-Tavares, J. High Energy Phys. 11 (2016) 052.
  28. C.-W. Chiang, H. Fukuda, M. Ibe, and T. T. Yanagida, Phys. Rev. D 93, 095016 (2016).
  29. M. K. Gaillard, M. B. Gavela, R. Houtz, P. Quilez, and R. Del Rey, Eur. Phys. J. C 78, 972 (2018).
  30. T. Gherghetta and M. D. Nguyen, J. High Energy Phys. 12 (2020) 094.
  31. M. Bauer, M. Neubert, and A. Thamm, J. High Energy Phys. 12 (2017) 044.
  32. A. Ariga et al. (FASER Collaboration), Phys. Rev. D 99, 095011 (2019).
  33. D. Aloni, Y. Soreq, and M. Williams, Phys. Rev. Lett. 123, 031803 (2019).
  34. H.-C. Cheng, L. Li, and E. Salvioni, J. High Energy Phys. 01 (2022) 122.
  35. G. Dalla Valle Garcia, F. Kahlhoefer, M. Ovchynnikov, and A. Zaporozhchenko, Phys. Rev. D 109, 055042 (2024).
  36. T. Li, M. A. Schmidt, and M. Yuan, Phys. Rev. D 112, 115038 (2025).
  37. J. L. Feng, I. Galon, F. Kling, and S. Trojanowski, Phys. Rev. D 97, 035001 (2018).
  38. A. Ariga et al. (FASER Collaboration), arXiv:1811.10243.
  39. A. Ariga et al. (FASER Collaboration), arXiv:1812.09139.
  40. A. Ariga et al. (FASER Collaboration), arXiv:1901.04468.
  41. H. Abreu et al. (FASER Collaboration), J. Instrum. 19, P05066 (2024).
  42. J. L. Feng et al., J. Phys. G 50, 030501 (2023).
  43. I. Boiarska, K. Bondarenko, A. Boyarsky, M. Ovchynnikov, O. Ruchayskiy, and A. Sokolenko, J. High Energy Phys. 05 (2020) 049.
  44. S. Cerci et al., J. High Energy Phys. 06 (2022) 110.
  45. E. M. Riordan et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 59, 755 (1987).
  46. J. D. Bjorken, S. Ecklund, W. R. Nelson, A. Abashian, C. Church, B. Lu, L. W. Mo, T. A. Nunamaker, and P. Rassmann, Phys. Rev. D 38, 3375 (1988).
  47. A. Bross, M. Crisler, S. H. Pordes, J. Volk, S. Errede, and J. Wrbanek, Phys. Rev. Lett. 67, 2942 (1991).
  48. Y.-S. Liu and G. A. Miller, Phys. Rev. D 96, 016004 (2017).
  49. D. Banerjee et al. (NA64 Collaboration), Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 081801 (2020).
  50. Y. M. Andreev et al. (NA64 Collaboration), Phys. Rev. D 104, L111102 (2021).
  51. A. Ishikawa, Y. Sakaki, and Y. Takubo, Prog. Theor. Exp. Phys. 2022, 113B05 (2022).
  52. H. Sieber, D. Banerjee, P. Crivelli, E. Depero, S. N. Gninenko, D. V. Kirpichnikov, M. M. Kirsanov, V. Poliakov, and L. Molina Bueno, Phys. Rev. D 105, 052006 (2022).
  53. Y. M. Andreev et al. (NA64 Collaboration), Phys. Rev. Lett. 132, 211803 (2024).
  54. F. Bergsma et al. (CHARM Collaboration), Phys. Lett. 166B, 473 (1986).
  55. C. Athanassopoulos et al. (LSND Collaboration), Phys. Rev. C 58, 2489 (1998).
  56. P. Astier et al. (NOMAD Collaboration), Phys. Lett. B 506, 27 (2001).
  57. M. Anelli et al. (SHiP Collaboration), arXiv:1504.04956.
  58. S. Alekhin et al., Rep. Prog. Phys. 79, 124201 (2016).
  59. R. R. Dusaev, D. V. Kirpichnikov, and M. M. Kirsanov, Phys. Rev. D 102, 055018 (2020).
  60. J. Liu, Y. Luo, and M. Song, J. High Energy Phys. 09 (2023) 104.
  61. K. J. Kim and Y.-S. Tsai, Phys. Rev. D 8, 3109 (1973).
  62. M. Bauer, P. Foldenauer, and J. Jaeckel, J. High Energy Phys. 07 (2018) 094.
  63. Y.-S. Tsai and V. Whitis, Phys. Rev. 149, 1248 (1966).
  64. Y.-S. Tsai, Rev. Mod. Phys. 46, 815 (1974); 49, 421(E) (1977).
  65. Y.-S. Tsai, Phys. Rev. D 34, 1326 (1986).
  66. Z. Bai et al., Phys. Rev. D 106, 115034 (2022).
  67. M. A. Soto et al., Phys. Rev. D 112, 112014 (2025).
  68. A. Fedotov, A. Ilderton, F. Karbstein, B. King, D. Seipt, H. Taya, and G. Torgrimsson, Phys. Rep. 1010, 1 (2023).
  69. D. L. Burke et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 79, 1626 (1997).
  70. C. Bamber et al., Phys. Rev. D 60, 092004 (1999).
  71. A. Hartin, Int. J. Mod. Phys. A 33, 1830011 (2018).
  72. H. Abramowicz et al., arXiv:1909.00860.
  73. H. Abramowicz et al., Eur. Phys. J. Special Topics 230, 2445 (2021).
  74. M. Altarelli et al., XFEL: The European X-Ray Free-Electron Laser. Technical design Report No. DESY-06-097, 2006, .
  75. N. Ness and B. Cimring, Phys. Rev. D 114, 035021 (2026).
  76. J. Liu, X. Ma, L.-T. Wang, and X.-P. Wang, Phys. Rev. D 107, 095016 (2023).
  77. A. Pustyntsev and M. Vanderhaeghen, Eur. Phys. J. C 84, 546 (2024).
  78. A. Pustyntsev and M. Vanderhaeghen, Phys. Rev. D 110, 075027 (2024).
  79. M. Bauer, M. Neubert, S. Renner, M. Schnubel, and A. Thamm, J. High Energy Phys. 04 (2021) 063.
  80. M. Bauer, M. Neubert, S. Renner, M. Schnubel, and A. Thamm, J. High Energy Phys. 09 (2022) 056.
  81. H. Georgi, D. B. Kaplan, and L. Randall, Phys. Lett. 169B, 73 (1986).
  82. Z. G. Berezhiani and M. Y. Khlopov, Z. Phys. C 49, 73 (1991).
  83. Y. Ema, K. Hamaguchi, T. Moroi, and K. Nakayama, J. High Energy Phys. 01 (2017) 096.
  84. L. Calibbi, F. Goertz, D. Redigolo, R. Ziegler, and J. Zupan, Phys. Rev. D 95, 095009 (2017).
  85. F. Björkeroth, L. Di Luzio, F. Mescia, and E. Nardi, J. High Energy Phys. 02 (2019) 133.
  86. L. M. G. de la Vega, N. Nath, S. Nellen, and E. Peinado, Eur. Phys. J. C 81, 608 (2021).
  87. D. M. Wolkow, Z. Phys. 94, 250 (1935).
  88. H. R. Reiss, J. Math. Phys. (N.Y.) 3, 59 (1962).
  89. B. M. Dillon and B. King, Eur. Phys. J. C 78, 775 (2018).
  90. B. King, Phys. Lett. B 782, 737 (2018).
  91. B. M. Dillon and B. King, Phys. Rev. D 99, 035048 (2019).
  92. K. A. Beyer, G. Marocco, R. Bingham, and G. Gregori, Phys. Rev. D 105, 035031 (2022).
  93. K. Ma and T. Li, Phys. Rev. D 111, 055001 (2025).
  94. L. Angel, G. Casse, G. Gambini, A. S. de Jesus, V. Kozhuharov, A. Machado, F. S. Queiroz, E. Segreto, and J. Smirnov, arXiv:2603.00247.
  95. T. G. Blackburn, B. King, and S. Tang, Phys. Plasmas 30, 093903 (2023).
  96. T. Blackburn and K. Fleck, ptarmigan GitHub repository, https://github.com/tgblackburn/ptarmigan.
  97. Howard Baer, arXiv:1306.6352.
  98. A. Abada et al. (FCC Collaboration), Eur. Phys. J. Special Topics 228, 261 (2019).
  99. M. Dong et al. (CEPC Study Group), arXiv:1811.10545.
  100. A. Irles (LUXE Collaboration), in International Workshop on Future Linear Colliders (2023).
  101. I. Schulthess and F. Meloni, arXiv:2503.20996.
  102. C. Adolphsen et al., arXiv:1306.6328.
  103. C.-Y. Chen, M. Pospelov, and Y.-M. Zhong, Phys. Rev. D 95, 115005 (2017).
  104. A. Berlin, S. Gori, P. Schuster, and N. Toro, Phys. Rev. D 98, 035011 (2018).
  105. C. Cesarotti, S. Homiller, R. K. Mishra, and M. Reece, Phys. Rev. Lett. 130, 071803 (2023).
  106. D. Aloni, C. Fanelli, Y. Soreq, and M. Williams, Phys. Rev. Lett. 123, 071801 (2019).
  107. J. Jaeckel and M. Spannowsky, Phys. Lett. B 753, 482 (2016).
  108. M. Ablikim et al. (BESIII Collaboration), Phys. Lett. B 838, 137698 (2023).
  109. M. Ablikim et al. (BESIII Collaboration), Phys. Rev. D 110, L031101 (2024).
  110. F. Abudinén et al. (Belle-II Collaboration), Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 161806 (2020).
  111. F. Bergsma et al. (CHARM Collaboration), Phys. Lett. 157B, 458 (1985).
  112. M. J. Dolan, T. Ferber, C. Hearty, F. Kahlhoefer, and K. Schmidt-Hoberg, J. High Energy Phys. 12 (2017) 094; 03 (2021) 190(E).
  113. B. Döbrich, J. Jaeckel, and T. Spadaro, J. High Energy Phys. 05 (2019) 213; 10 (2020) 046(E).
  114. J. Blumlein et al., Z. Phys. C 51, 341 (1991).
  115. D. d’Enterria, in Workshop on Feebly Interacting Particles (2021).
  116. J. P. Lees et al. (BABAR Collaboration), Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 131804 (2017).
  117. A. Caputo, G. Raffelt, and E. Vitagliano, Phys. Rev. D 105, 035022 (2022).
  118. A. Caputo, H.-T. Janka, G. Raffelt, and E. Vitagliano, Phys. Rev. Lett. 128, 221103 (2022).
  119. G. Lucente, P. Carenza, T. Fischer, M. Giannotti, and A. Mirizzi, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 12 (2020) 008.
  120. E. Müller, F. Calore, P. Carenza, C. Eckner, and M. C. D. Marsh, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 07 (2023) 056.
  121. S. Hoof and L. Schulz, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 03 (2023) 054.
  122. J. B. Dent, B. Dutta, D. Kim, S. Liao, R. Mahapatra, K. Sinha, and A. Thompson, Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 211804 (2020).
  123. S. S. Chakrabarty and I. Jaeglé, arXiv:1903.06225.
  124. J.-W. Chen, H.-C. Chi, C. P. Liu, and C.-P. Wu, Phys. Lett. B 774, 656 (2017).
  125. Center for X-ray Optics and Advanced Light Source, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, X-ray data booklet [Online manual], available at: https://xdb.lbl.gov/ (2009).
  126. R. D. Deslattes, J. Kessler, E. G., P. Indelicato, L. de Billy, E. Lindroth, J. Anton, J. S. Coursey, D. J. Schwab, C. Chang, R. Sukumar, K. Olsen, and R. A. Dragoset, X-ray Transition Energies Database (Version 1.2) (National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, 2005), Available: https://physics.nist.gov/XrayTrans.
  127. M. Bauer, M. Heiles, M. Neubert, and A. Thamm, Eur. Phys. J. C 79, 74 (2019).

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. D 114, 075010– Published 8 October, 2026
  • Received 22 July 2026
  • Accepted 21 September 2026
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

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.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation