Published November 28, 2006 | Version v1
Journal article

Search for solar axions: the CAST experiment

  • 1. DAPNIA, Centre d'Etudes Nucleaires de Saclay (CEA-Saclay), Gif-sur-Yvette (France)
  • 2. European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Geneve (Switzerland)
  • 3. Institute for Nuclear Research (INR), Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow (Russian Federation)
  • 4. Instituto de Fisica Nuclear y Altas Energias, Universidad de Zaragoza, Zaragoza (Spain)
  • 5. Max-Planck-Institut fuer extraterrestrische Physik, Garching (Germany)

Description

Hypothetical axion-like particles with a two-photon interaction would be produced in the sun by the Primakoff process. In a laboratory magnetic field they would be transformed into X-rays with energies of a few keV. The CAST experiment at CERN is using a decommissioned LHC magnet as an axion helioscope in order to search for these axion-like particles. The analysis of the 2003 data showed no signal above the background, thus implying an upper limit to the axion-photon coupling of gaγ < 1.16 x 10-10 GeV-1 at 95% CL for ma < or approx. 0.02 eV. The stable operation of the experiment during 2004 data taking allowed us to lower down this parameter to a preliminary value of gaγ < 0.9 x 10-10 GeV-1

Additional details

Identifiers

Publishing Information

Journal Title
AIP Conference Proceedings
Journal Volume
878
Journal Issue
1
Journal Page Range
p. 395-401
ISSN
0094-243X
CODEN
APCPCS

Conference

Title
2. international conference on the dark side of the universe
Acronym
DSU 2006
Dates
20-24 Jun 2006
Place
Madrid (Spain)

Optional Information

Notes
(c) 2006 American Institute of Physics