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This content will become publicly available on December 1, 2026

Title: Searching for dark matter with a spin-based interferometer
Axion-like particles (ALPs) arise from well-motivated extensions to the Standard Model and could account for dark matter. ALP dark matter would manifest as a field oscillating at an (as of yet) unknown frequency. The frequency depends linearly on the ALP mass and plausibly ranges from 10−22to 10 eV/c2. This motivates broadband search approaches. We report on a direct search for ALP dark matter with an interferometer composed of two atomic K-Rb-3He comagnetometers, one situated in Mainz, Germany, and the other in Kraków, Poland. We leverage the anticipated spatio-temporal coherence properties of the ALP field and probe all ALP-gradient-spin interactions covering a mass range of nine orders of magnitude. No significant evidence of an ALP signal is found. We thus place new upper limits on the ALP-neutron, ALP-proton and ALP-electron couplings reaching belowgaNN < 10−9 GeV−1,gaPP < 10−7 GeV−1andgaee < 10−6 GeV−1, respectively. These limits improve upon previous laboratory constraints for neutron and proton couplings by up to three orders of magnitude.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
2110388
PAR ID:
10652409
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Publisher / Repository:
Springer Nature
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Nature Communications
Volume:
16
Issue:
1
ISSN:
2041-1723
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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