Laser-driven search of axion-like particles including vacuum polarization effects

Abstract

Oscillations of photons into axion-like particles in a high-intensity laser field are investigated. Nonlinear QED effects are considered through the low energy behavior of the vacuum polarization tensor, which is derived from the Euler-Heisenberg Lagrangian in the one-loop and weak field approximations. The expressions obtained in this framework are applied to the configuration in which the strong background field is a circularly polarized monochromatic plane wave. The outcomes of this analysis reveal that, in the regime of low energy-momentum transfer, the axion field induces a chiral-like birefringence and dichroism in the vacuum which is not manifest in a pure QED context. The corresponding ellipticity and angular rotation of the polarization plane are also determined. We take advantage of such observables to impose exclusion limits on the axion parameters. Our predictions cover axion masses for which a setup based on dipole magnets provides less stringent constraints. Possible experimental scenarios in which our results could be tested are also discussed.

Light dark matter candidates in intense laser pulses I: paraphotons and fermionic minicharged particles

“…These first estimates reveal that a laser wave with a long temporal length and a moderate intensity might be an external-field source suitable for searching very light weakly interacting particles with masses in the eV range. As such our outcomes agree with and complement the results obtained in a previous investigation developed within the context of axion-like particles [58].…”

“…While this constitutes a very strong motivation, the first estimates of the upper bounds resulting from operating facilities such as the Petawatt High-Energy Laser for heavy Ion eXperiments (PHELIX) [70] and the Laboratoire pour l'Utilisation des Lasers Intenses (LULI) [71] might turn out to be competitive in the search for MCPs and even more promising than those derived from ELI and XCELS parameters. This has already been predicted theoretically for axionlike particles [58]. The main reason behind this finding lies in the fact that these contemporary systems -although operating at moderate intensity Against this background, the present work aims to provide a first estimate on the exclusion limits for MCPs and massless paraphotons, resulting from plausible polarimetric setups utilizing the field of a circularly polarized laser wave of long temporal length.…”

“…Despite the disadvantage introduced by their limited temporal and spatial extensions, the prospect of finding stringent limits on the weakly interacting sub-eV particles' attributes by using high-intensity laser fields is becoming a subject of interest [52][53][54][55][56][57][58]. Firstly, because the field strengths attained from these powerful sources are much higher than the static ones frequently used in experiments driven by dipole magnets |B B B| ∼ o[10 4 −10 5 ] G; and secondly, because the oscillating nature of laser fields introduces -apart from the profile of the wave amplitude and its polarization -the field frequency as an additional characteristic.…”

Electron-seeded ALP production and ALP decay in an oscillating electromagnetic field

“…The limiting factor is more the volume of the laser pulse for which ξ is sufficiently high, as well as the laser's repetition rate. The BELLA laser facility supplies 1 PW at a repetition rate of 1 Hz and has demonstrated a peak laser intensity of over 10 19 Wcm −2 [55]. With the development of modern high-intensity laser systems, these values are set to become even more favourable.…”

Plasma-based wakefield accelerators as sources of axion-like particles

“…Furthermore, it is possible that a new perspective will be gained on long-standing problems in fundamental physics that include understanding the nature of dark matter. In particular, such facilities are expected to be capable of complementing established approaches for exploring the existence of light weakly-interacting axion-like particles (ALPs) [4][5][6][7]. Axions were first introduced in the 1970s as an elegant solution to the strong CP problem in QCD [8][9][10], but it was later realised that ALPs, which are light pseudo-scalar particles whose couplings to ordinary matter resemble those of the axion, naturally occur in string-inspired generalisations of the Standard Model [11].…”