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arXiv · 1805.10252

Hunting for Axionlike Dark Matter by Searching for an Oscillating Neutron Electric Dipole Moment

N. J. Ayres
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Abstract

We report on a search for ultra-low-mass axion-like dark matter by analysing the ratio of the spin-precession frequencies of stored ultracold neutrons and $^{199}$Hg atoms for an axion-induced oscillating electric dipole moment of the neutron and an axion-wind spin-precession effect. No signal consistent with dark matter is observed for the axion mass range $10^{-24}~\textrm{eV} \le m_a \le 10^{-17}~\textrm{eV}$. Our null result sets the first laboratory constraints on the coupling of axion dark matter to gluons, which improve on astrophysical limits by up to 3 orders of magnitude, and also improves on previous laboratory constraints on the axion coupling to nucleons by up to a factor of 40. The results were initially presented in Phys. Rev. X 7, 041034, of which this proceeding is largely a summary.

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N. J. Ayres. 2018-05-25. Hunting for Axionlike Dark Matter by Searching for an Oscillating Neutron Electric Dipole Moment. https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.10252

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