- 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

First limits on axion dark matter from a DALI prototype

Javier De Miguel1,2,3,*, Enrique Joven1, Elvio Hernández-Suárez1, Juan F. Hernández-Cabrera1, Haroldo Lorenzo-Hernández1, Dylan Carroll4,†, Roger J. Hoyland1, Edgar S. Carlin1,2, Antonios Gardikiotis5,6 et al. (DALI Collaboration)

Antonios Gardikiotis5,6, Abaz Kryemadhi7, J. Daniel Marrero-Falcón2, Marios Maroudas8, Chiko Otani3, J. Alberto Rubiño-Martín1,2, and Konstantin Zioutas5 (DALI Collaboration)

  • *Contact author: jdemiguel@iac.es
  • †Present address: Sagittal Optics, 38002 Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain
PDF

Phys. Rev. D 114, 063047 – Published 23 September, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/q5yq-jj9m

Abstract

We report a pilot dark matter search with a cryogenic, magnetized, scaled-down DALI prototype. An analysis of 36 hours of data reveals no statistically significant excess attributable to axionlike particles. We therefore set new exclusion limits in the 6.88691–6.91792 GHz band, reaching an axion-photon coupling sensitivity of gaγγ≲9.7×10−12  GeV−1 at 28.54  μeV. These results consolidate the DALI approach and motivate a next-stage haloscope to explore a broader mass range with upgraded instrumentation.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

References (30)

  1. R. D. Peccei and H. R. Quinn, CP conservation in the presence of pseudoparticles, Phys. Rev. Lett. 38, 1440 (1977).
  2. S. Weinberg, A new light boson?, Phys. Rev. Lett. 40, 223 (1978).
  3. F. Wilczek, Problem of strong p and t invariance in the presence of instantons, Phys. Rev. Lett. 40, 279 (1978).
  4. F. Zwicky, Die Rotverschiebung von extragalaktischen Nebeln, Helv. Phys. Acta 6, 110 (1933), https://inspirehep.net/literature/8352.
  5. L. Abbott and P. Sikivie, A cosmological bound on the invisible axion, Phys. Lett. 120B, 133 (1983).
  6. M. Dine and W. Fischler, The not-so-harmless axion, Phys. Lett. 120B, 137 (1983).
  7. J. Preskill, M. B. Wise, and F. Wilczek, Cosmology of the invisible axion, Phys. Lett. 120B, 127 (1983).
  8. V. C. Rubin and J. Ford, W. Kent, Rotation of the Andromeda Nebula from a spectroscopic survey of emission regions, Astrophys. J. 159, 379 (1970).
  9. A. Arza et al., The COSMIC WISPers White Paper: The physics case for weakly interacting slim particles, arXiv:2603.03433.
  10. B. Andrieu et al., Enhancing European cooperation in the search for dark matter, arXiv:2504.01688.
  11. H. Primakoff, Photoproduction of neutral mesons in nuclear electric fields and the mean life of the neutral meson, Phys. Rev. 81, 899 (1951).
  12. P. Sikivie, Experimental tests of the “Invisible” axion, Phys. Rev. Lett. 51, 1415 (1983).
  13. J. De Miguel, A dark matter telescope probing the 6 to 60 GHz band, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 04 (2021) 075.
  14. J. De Miguel, J. F. Hernández-Cabrera, E. Hernández-Suárez, E. Joven-Álvarez, C. Otani, and J. A. Rubiño-Martín (DALI), Discovery prospects with the dark-photons & axion-like particles Interferometer, Phys. Rev. D 109, 062002 (2024).
  15. J. F. Hernández-Cabrera, J. De Miguel, E. J. Álvarez, E. Hernández-Suárez, J. A. Rubiño Martín, and C. Otani, A forecast of the sensitivity of the DALI experiment to galactic axion dark matter, Symmetry 16, 163 (2024).
  16. J. F. Hernández-Cabrera, J. De Miguel, E. Hernández-Suárez, E. Joven-Álvarez, H. Lorenzo-Hernández, C. Otani, M. A. Rapado-Tamarit, and J. A. Rubiño-Martín, Experimental measurement of the quality factor of a Fabry-Pérot open-cavity axion haloscope, J. Instrum. 19, P01022 (2024).
  17. J. F. Hernández-Cabrera, J. De Miguel, E. Hernández-Suárez, E. Joven, C. Otani, J. A. Rubiño Martín, and K. Zioutas (DALI Collaboration), Echo-free quality factor of a multilayer axion haloscope, Phys. Rev. D 110, 072013 (2024).
  18. J. De Miguel, A. Kryemadhi, and K. Zioutas (DALI Collaboration), DALI sensitivity to streaming axion dark matter, Phys. Rev. D 111, 023016 (2025).
  19. A. Perot and C. Fabry, On the application of interference phenomena to the solution of various problems of spectroscopy and metrology, Astrophys. J. 9, 87 (1899).
  20. R. H. Dicke, The measurement of thermal radiation at microwave frequencies, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 17, 268 (1946).
  21. P. G. Staudt, J. S. Bullock, M. Boylan-Kolchin, A. Wetzel, and X. Ou, Sliding into DM: Determining the local dark matter density and speed distribution using only the local circular speed of the Galaxy, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 08 (2024) 022.
  22. Elmer fem—open source multiphysical simulation software, last visited 10 June 2024.
  23. Gmsh: A three-dimensional finite element mesh generator with built-in pre- and post-processing facilities, last visited 10 June 2024.
  24. B. M. Brubaker, L. Zhong, S. K. Lamoreaux, K. W. Lehnert, and K. A. van Bibber, HAYSTAC axion search analysis procedure, Phys. Rev. D 96, 123008 (2017).
  25. M. Frigo and S. Johnson, The design and implementation of FFTW3, Proc. IEEE 93, 216 (2005).
  26. A. Quiskamp, B. T. McAllister, P. Altin, E. N. Ivanov, M. Goryachev, and M. E. Tobar, Direct search for dark matter axions excluding ALP cogenesis in the 63 to 67  μev range with the organ experiment, Sci. Adv. 8, eabq3765 (2022).
  27. K. Altenmüller et al. (CAST Collaboration), New upper limit on the axion-photon coupling with an extended cast run with a xe-based micromegas detector, Phys. Rev. Lett. 133, 221005 (2024).
  28. L. Zhong et al., Results from phase 1 of the haystac microwave cavity axion experiment, Phys. Rev. D 97, 092001 (2018).
  29. B. M. Brubaker et al., First results from a microwave cavity axion search at 24  μeV, Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 061302 (2017).
  30. C. Boutan et al. (ADMX Collaboration), Piezoelectrically tuned multimode cavity search for axion dark matter, Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 261302 (2018).

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. D 114, 063047– Published 23 September, 2026
  • Received 24 March 2026
  • Accepted 2 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