First results of axion dark matter search with DANCE
Yuka Oshima, Hiroki Fujimoto, J. Kume, S. Morisaki, Koji Nagano, Tomohiro Fujita, Ippei Obata, A. Nishizawa, Yuta Michimura, Masaki Ando
Abstract
Axions are one of the well-motivated candidates for dark matter, originally proposed to solve the strong $CP$ problem in particle physics. Dark matter Axion search with riNg Cavity Experiment (DANCE) is a new experimental project to broadly search for axion dark matter in the mass range of ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}17}\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{eV}<\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}{m}_{a}<{10}^{\ensuremath{-}11}\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{eV}$. We aim to detect the rotational oscillation of linearly polarized light caused by the axion-photon coupling with a bow-tie cavity. The first results of the prototype experiment, DANCE Act-1, are reported from a 24-hour observation. We found no evidence for axions and set 95% confidence level upper limit on the axion-photon coupling ${g}_{a\ensuremath{\gamma}\ensuremath{\gamma}}\ensuremath{\lesssim}8\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}4}\text{ }\text{ }{\mathrm{GeV}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$ in ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}14}\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{eV}<{m}_{a}<{10}^{\ensuremath{-}13}\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{eV}$. Although the bound did not exceed the current best limits, this optical cavity experiment is the first demonstration of polarization-based axion dark matter search without any external magnetic field.