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 10−17eV<ma<10−11eV. 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 gaγ≲8×10−4GeV−1 in 10−14eV<ma<10−13eV. 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.
@article{arxiv.2303.03594,
title = {First results of axion dark matter search with DANCE},
author = {Yuka Oshima and Hiroki Fujimoto and Jun'ya Kume and Soichiro Morisaki and Koji Nagano and Tomohiro Fujita and Ippei Obata and Atsushi Nishizawa and Yuta Michimura and Masaki Ando},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2303.03594},
year = {2024}
}