Proposal to use laser-accelerated electrons to probe the axion-electron coupling

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Vacalis, Georgios and Higuchi, Atsushi and Bingham, Robert and Gregori, Gianluca (2025) Proposal to use laser-accelerated electrons to probe the axion-electron coupling. Physical Review Letters, 135 (19). 195003. ISSN 1079-7114 (https://doi.org/10.1103/vgvg-hcbr)

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Abstract

The axion is a hypothetical particle associated with a possible solution to the strong CP problem and is a leading candidate for dark matter. In this Letter we investigate the emission of axions by accelerated electrons. We find the emission probability and energy within the WKB approximation for an electron accelerated by an electromagnetic field. As an application, we estimate the number of axions produced by electrons accelerated using two counterpropagating high-intensity lasers and discuss how they would be converted to photons to be detected. We find that, under realistic experimental conditions, competitive model-independent bounds on the coupling between the axion and the electron could be achieved in such an experiment.

ORCID iDs

Vacalis, Georgios, Higuchi, Atsushi, Bingham, Robert ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9843-7635 and Gregori, Gianluca;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)