English

First search for axion dark matter with a Madmax prototype

High Energy Physics - Experiment 2025-08-13 v2

Abstract

This paper presents the first search for dark matter axions with mass in the ranges 76.56 to 76.82 μ\mueV and 79.31 to 79.53 μ\mueV using a prototype setup for the MAgnetized Disk and Mirror Axion eXperiment (MADMAX). The experimental setup employs a dielectric haloscope consisting of three sapphire disks and a mirror to resonantly enhance the axion-induced microwave signal within the magnetic dipole field provided by the 1.6 T Morpurgo magnet at CERN. Over 14.5 days of data collection, no axion signal was detected. A 95% CL upper limit on the axion-photon coupling strength down to gaγ2×1011GeV1|g_{a\gamma}| \sim 2 \times 10^{-11} \mathrm{GeV}^{-1} is set in the targeted mass ranges, surpassing previous constraints, assuming a local axion dark matter density ρa\rho_{a} of 0.3 GeV/cm30.3~\mathrm{GeV}/\mathrm{cm}^3. This study marks the first axion dark matter search using a dielectric haloscope.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2409.11777,
  title  = {First search for axion dark matter with a Madmax prototype},
  author = {B. Ary dos Santos Garcia and D. Bergermann and A. Caldwell and V. Dabhi and C. Diaconu and J. Diehl and G. Dvali and J. Egge and E. Garutti and S. Heyminck and F. Hubaut and A. Ivanov and J. Jochum and S. Knirck and M. Kramer and D. Kreikemeyer-Lorenzo and C. Krieger and C. Lee and D. Leppla-Weber and X. Li and A. Lindner and B. Majorovits and J. P. A. Maldonado and A. Martini and A. Miyazaki and E. Öz and P. Pralavorio and G. Raffelt and J. Redondo and A. Ringwald and J. Schaffran and A. Schmidt and F. Steffen and C. Strandhagen and I. Usherov and H. Wang and G. Wieching},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2409.11777},
  year   = {2025}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-28T18:48:43.248Z