Search for photon oscillations into massive particles

TL;DR

This experiment searched for photon oscillations into axions and paraphotons, setting new limits on their properties and excluding certain axion models within specific mass ranges.

Contribution

It provides the final experimental results that significantly improve constraints on axion and paraphoton parameters, surpassing previous limits.

Findings

Excluded axion models with inverse coupling constant M>9×10^5 GeV for low masses

Improved limits on axion masses 1.1 meV to 2.6 meV by a factor of 3 or more

Enhanced constraints on low mass hidden-sector bosons (paraphotons)

Abstract

In this paper, we present the final results of our experiment on photon-axion oscillations in the presence of a magnetic field, which took place at LULI (Laboratoire pour l'Utilisation des Lasers Intenses, Palaiseau, France). Our null measurement allowed us to exclude the existence of axions with inverse coupling constant $M>9.\times 10^5$ GeV for low axion masses and to improve the preceding BFRT limits by a factor 3 or more for axion masses $1.1 {meV} <m_a<2.6 {meV}$. We also show that our experimental results improve the existing limits on the parameters of a low mass hidden-sector boson usually dubbed "paraphoton" because of its similarity with the usual photon.