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Bounds on Heavy Axions with an X-Ray Free Electron Laser

Jack W. D. Halliday1,2,3, Giacomo Marocco4, Konstantin A. Beyer1,5, Charles Heaton1, Motoaki Nakatsutsumi6, Thomas R. Preston6, Charles D. Arrowsmith1, Carsten Baehtz7, Sebastian Goede6 et al.

Oliver Humphries6, Alejandro Laso Garcia7, Richard Plackett1, Pontus Svensson1, Georgios Vacalis1, Justin Wark1, Daniel Wood1, Ulf Zastrau6, Robert Bingham8,9, Ian Shipsey1,*, Subir Sarkar1, and Gianluca Gregori1

  • *Deceased.
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 134, 055001 – Published 6 February, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.134.055001

Abstract

We present new exclusion bounds obtained at the European X-Ray Free Electron Laser facility (EuXFEL) on axionlike particles in the mass range 10−3  eV≲ma≲104  eV. Our experiment exploits the Primakoff effect via which photons can, in the presence of a strong external electric field, decay into axions, which then convert back into photons after passing through an opaque wall. While similar searches have been performed previously at a third-generation synchrotron [Yamaji et al., Phys. Lett. B 782, 523 (2018)], our work demonstrates improved sensitivity, exploiting the higher brightness of x-rays at EuXFEL.

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Outline

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 134, 055001– Published 6 February, 2025
  • Received 10 May 2024
  • Revised 19 September 2024
  • Accepted 2 January 2025
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