We report on a search for dark matter axion-like particles (ALPs) using a Ramsey-type apparatus for cold neutrons. A hypothetical ALP-gluon-coupling would manifest in a neutron electric dipole moment signal oscillating in time. Twenty-four hours of data have been analyzed in a frequency range from 23 μHz to 1 kHz, and no significant oscillating signal has been found. The usage of present dark-matter models allows to constrain the coupling of ALPs to gluons in the mass range from 10−19 to 4×10−12 eV. The best limit of CG/fama=2.7×1013 GeV−2 (95\% C.L.) is reached in the mass range from 2×10−17 to 2×10−14 eV.
@article{arxiv.2204.01454,
title = {New Limit on Axion-Like Dark Matter using Cold Neutrons},
author = {Ivo Schulthess and Estelle Chanel and Anastasio Fratangelo and Alexander Gottstein and Andreas Gsponer and Zachary Hodge and Ciro Pistillo and Dieter Ries and Torsten Soldner and Jacob Thorne and Florian M. Piegsa},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2204.01454},
year = {2026}
}