Search for Axionlike Dark Matter through Nuclear Spin Precession in Electric and Magnetic Fields

C Abel,M Musgrave,G Bison,H.-C Koch,A Weis,K Bodek,A Kozela,T Lefort,G Zsigmond,K Green,P Geltenbort,D Shiers,M Rawlik,G Pignol,P Schmidt-Wellenburg,J Zejma,M Daum,N Severijns,A Mtchedlishvili,M Kasprzak,S Roccia,J Krempel,Y Lemière,E Wursten,M Van Der Grinten,G Ban,D Rebreyend,B Lauss,K Kirch,D Ries,P Iaydjiev,S Komposch,Zoran Grujić ,Y V Stadnik ,Y Kermaïdic ,D Rozpȩdzik ,William C Griffith ,В М Бондар ,V V Flambaum ,С Н Иванов ,Malcolm Fairbairn ,F M Piegsa ,Nora Hild ,Philip Harris ,P Koss ,David J E Marsh ,Prajwal Mohanmurthy ,N J Ayres

doi:10.1103/physrevx.7.041034

Abstract

We report on a search for ultra-low-mass axion-like dark matter by analysing the ratio of the spin-precession frequencies of stored ultracold neutrons and $^{199}$Hg atoms for an axion-induced oscillating electric dipole moment of the neutron and an axion-wind spin-precession effect. No signal consistent with dark matter is observed for the axion mass range $10^{-24}~\textrm{eV} \le m_a \le 10^{-17}~\textrm{eV}$. Our null result sets the first laboratory constraints on the coupling of axion dark matter to gluons, which improve on astrophysical limits by up to 3 orders of magnitude, and also improves on previous laboratory constraints on the axion coupling to nucleons by up to a factor of 40.

Highlights

Astrophysical and cosmological observations indicate that 26% of the total energy density and 84% of the total matter content of the Universe is dark matter (DM) [1], the identity and properties of which still remain a mystery
We report on a search for ultralow-mass axionlike dark matter by analyzing the ratio of the spinprecession frequencies of stored ultracold neutrons and 199Hg atoms for an axion-induced oscillating electric dipole moment of the neutron and an axion-wind spin-precession effect
We report on a search for an axion-induced oscillating electric dipole moments (EDMs) of the neutron based on an analysis of the ratio of the spin-precession frequencies of stored ultracold neutrons and 199Hg atoms, which is a system that had previously been used as a sensitive probe of new non-EDM physics [59,60,61]

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Astrophysical and cosmological observations indicate that 26% of the total energy density and 84% of the total matter content of the Universe is dark matter (DM) [1], the identity and properties of which still remain a mystery. It has been proposed to search for the interactions of the coherently oscillating axion DM field with gluons and fermions, which can induce oscillating electric dipole moments (EDMs) of nucleons [30] and atoms [31,32,33], and anomalous spin-precession effects [31,34,35]. We report on a search for an axion-induced oscillating EDM of the neutron (nEDM) based on an analysis of the ratio of the spin-precession frequencies of stored ultracold neutrons and 199Hg atoms, which is a system that had previously been used as a sensitive probe of new non-EDM physics [59,60,61]. Our analysis places the first laboratory constraints on the axion-nucleon coupling from the consideration of an effect that is linear in the interaction constant

LONG-TIME-BASE ANALYSIS

SHORT-TIME-BASE ANALYSIS

AXION-WIND EFFECT

Findings

CONCLUSIONS