Bounds on heavy axions with an X-Ray Free Electron Laser

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Halliday, Jack W. D. and Marocco, Giacomo and Beyer, Konstantin A. and Heaton, Charles and Nakatsutsumi, Motoaki and Preston, Thomas R. and Arrowsmith, Charles D. and Baehtz, Carsten and Goede, Sebastian and Humphries, Oliver and Garcia, Alejandro Laso and Plackett, Richard and Svensson, Pontus and Vacalis, Georgios and Wark, Justin and Wood, Daniel and Zastrau, Ulf and Bingham, Robert and Shipsey, Ian and Sarkar, Subir and Gregori, Gianluca (2025) Bounds on heavy axions with an X-Ray Free Electron Laser. Physical Review Letters, 134 (5). 055001. ISSN 1079-7114 (https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.134.055001)

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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 , ], our work demonstrates improved sensitivity, exploiting the higher brightness of x-rays at EuXFEL. Published by the American Physical Society 2025

ORCID iDs

Halliday, Jack W. D., Marocco, Giacomo, Beyer, Konstantin A., Heaton, Charles, Nakatsutsumi, Motoaki, Preston, Thomas R., Arrowsmith, Charles D., Baehtz, Carsten, Goede, Sebastian, Humphries, Oliver, Garcia, Alejandro Laso, Plackett, Richard, Svensson, Pontus, Vacalis, Georgios, Wark, Justin, Wood, Daniel, Zastrau, Ulf, Bingham, Robert ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9843-7635, Shipsey, Ian, Sarkar, Subir and Gregori, Gianluca;
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