Probing Light Pseudoscalar Particles Using Synchrotron Light

TL;DR

This paper proposes using synchrotron light sources for photon regeneration experiments to improve constraints on light pseudoscalar particles, offering a laboratory-based alternative to astrophysical bounds with enhanced mass reach.

Contribution

It introduces a novel experimental approach utilizing synchrotron radiation for light pseudoscalar searches, expanding the accessible parameter space beyond laser-based methods.

Findings

Potential to test pseudoscalar masses up to 0.01 eV.

Significant improvement over current laser experiment limits.

Feasible configurations can explore parameter space relevant to astrophysical phenomena.

Abstract

The need for purely laboratory-based light pseudoscalar particles searches has been emphasized many times in the literature, since astrophysical bounds on these particles rely on several assumptions to calculate the flux produced in stellar plasmas. In this paper we study the use of light from synchrotron accelerators as a source for a photon regeneration experiment also know as "light shining through a wall". Such an experiment can significantly improve present limits on the pseudoscalar particle mass and the pseudoscalar-photon coupling constant obtained from laser experiments. This is possible even using a small number of powerful magnets (B = 10 T), due to the large incident photon flux. On the other hand, the use of a broadband incident photon-beam instead of infrared or optical lasers allows a significant improvement in the mass reach of the experiment (it is possible to test masses up to 0.01 eV without a drop in sensitivity). Large, but still feasible, configurations can explore in a quite model-independent way a large part of the parameter space examined by solar searches and HB stars in globular clusters. Additionally, the proposal may be useful for testing string motivated effective theories containing light and weakly interacting particles.