No “Light Shining through a Wall”: Results from a Photoregeneration Experiment

Robilliard, Cécile; Battesti, Rémy; Fouché, Mathilde; Mauchain, Julien; Sautivet, Anne-Marie; Amiranoff, F.; Rizzo, C.

doi:10.1103/physrevlett.99.190403

Cited by 153 publications

(106 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…The chameleon-photon coupling induces both birefringence and dichroism [13,14] in a coherent photon beam passing through an external magnetic field. These effects could be detected by laboratory searches, such as the polarization experiments PVLAS, Q&A, and BMV [15,16,17,18], that are sensitive to new hypothetical particles with a small mass and coupling to photons.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Detecting chameleons: The astronomical polarization produced by chameleonlike scalar fields

2009

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We show that a coupling between chameleon-like scalar fields and photons induces linear and circular polarization in the light from astrophysical sources. In this context chameleon-like scalar fields includes those of the Olive-Pospelov (OP) model, which describes a varying fine structure constant. We determine the form of this polarization numerically and give analytic expressions in two useful limits. By comparing the predicted signal with current observations we are able to improve the constraints on the chameleon-photon coupling and the coupling in the OP model by over two orders of magnitude. It is argued that, if observed, the distinctive form of the chameleon induced circular polarization would represent a smoking gun for the presence of a chameleon. We also report a tentative statistical detection of a chameleon-like scalar field from observations of starlight polarization in our galaxy.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Detecting chameleons: The astronomical polarization produced by chameleonlike scalar fields

2009

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“…It turns out that ALPs are extremely elusive in high-energy experiments and the only way to look for them in the laboratory requires very careful polarimetric measurements to be carried out on a laser beam [17] or alternatively a photon regeneration experiment to be performed [18]. Successful detection of ALPs in present-day experiments of this kind is possible in either case for a fairly large aγγ coupling.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Erratum: Relevance of axionlike particles for very-high-energy astrophysics [Phys. Rev. D84, 105030 (2011)]

Angelis¹,

Galanti²,

Roncadelli³

2013

Phys. Rev. D

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Several extensions of the Standard Model and in particular superstring theories suggest the existence of axion-like particles (ALPs), which are very light spin-zero bosons with a two-photon coupling. As a consequence, photon-ALP oscillations occur in the presence of an external magnetic field, and ALPs can lead to observable effects on the measured photon spectrum of astrophysical sources. An intriguing situation arises when blazars are observed in the very-high-energy (VHE) bandnamely above 100 GeV -as it is the case with the presently operating Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes (IACTs) H.E.S.S., MAGIC, CANGAROO III and VERITAS. The extragalactic background light (EBL) produced by galaxies during cosmic evolution gives rise to a source dimming which becomes important in the VHE band and increases with energy, since hard photons from a blazar scatter off soft EBL photons thereby disappearing into e + e − pairs. This dimming can be considerably reduced by photon-ALP oscillations, and since they are energy-independent the resulting blazar spectra become harder than expected. We consider throughout a scenario first proposed by De Angelis, Roncadelli and Mansutti -to be referred to as DARMA for short -in which the above strategy is implemented with photon-ALP oscillations triggered by large-scale magnetic fields, and we systematically investigate its implications for VHE blazars. We find that for ALPs lighter than 5 · 10 − 10 eV the photon survival probability is larger than predicted by conventional physics above a few hundred GeV. Specifically, a boost factor of 10 can easily occur for sources at large distance and large energy, e.g. at 8 TeV for the blazar 1ES 0347-121 at redshift z = 0.188. This is a clear-cut prediction which can be tested with the planned Cherenkov Telescope Array and the HAWC water Cherenkov γ-ray observatory, and possibly with the currently operating IACTs as well as with detectors like ARGO-YBJ and MILAGRO. Moreover, we show that the DARMA scenario offers a new interpretation of the VHE blazars detected so far, according to which the large spread in the values of the observed spectral index is mainly due to the wide spread in the source distances rather than to large variations of their internal physical properties. Finally, we stress that ALPs with the right properties to produce the above effects can be discovered by the GammeV experiment at FERMILAB and more likely with arXiv:1106.1132v5 [astro-ph.HE] 22 May 2013 2 the planned photon regeneration experiment ALPS at DESY. PACS numbers: 14.80.Mz, 95.85.Pw, 95.85.Ry, 98.70.Rz, 98.70.Vc, 98.70.Sa

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“…Light-shining-through-walls becomes possible if the probe photons are converted into ALPs in front of the wall and are reconverted into photons behind the wall. In typical laboratory searches the conversion processes are induced by strong dipole magnets, see, e.g., [8,10,11,13,21]. We depict this scenario in Fig.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Such particles generically arise in a number of extensions of the standard model and under certain conditions also constitute a viable dark matter candidate [3][4][5][6]. Most prominently, LSW experiments provide for the best direct laboratory bounds on axions, axionlike particles (ALPs) [7][8][9][10][11][12][13] and massive hidden-sector photons (also referred to as paraphotons) [14], as well as for indirect limits on massless hidden-sector photons and fractionally charged or 'minicharged' particles [15][16][17]. See, e.g., [18] and references therein for a recent overview.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Magnetically amplified light-shining-through-walls via virtual minicharged particles

et al. 2013

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We show that magnetic fields have the potential to significantly enhance a recently proposed light-shining-through-walls scenario in quantum-field theories with photons coupling to minicharged particles. Suggesting a dedicated laboratory experiment, we demonstrate that this particular tunneling scenario could provide access to a parameter regime competitive with the currently best direct laboratory limits on minicharged fermions below the meV regime. With present day technology, such an experiment has the potential to even overcome the best model-independent cosmological bounds on minicharged fermions with masses below O(10 −4 )eV.

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No “Light Shining through a Wall”: Results from a Photoregeneration Experiment

Cited by 153 publications

References 18 publications

Detecting chameleons: The astronomical polarization produced by chameleonlike scalar fields

Detecting chameleons: The astronomical polarization produced by chameleonlike scalar fields

Erratum: Relevance of axionlike particles for very-high-energy astrophysics [Phys. Rev. D84, 105030 (2011)]

Magnetically amplified light-shining-through-walls via virtual minicharged particles

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