Axion dark matter detection by laser spectroscopy of ultracold molecular oxygen: a proposal

Abstract

Generalizing Sikivie’s approach (Sikivie 2014 Phys. Rev. Lett. http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.113.201301 113 http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.113.201301 ), according to which dark matter axions may induce transitions between Zeeman states in an atomic system, an experiment based on a molecular gas is proposed for a search in the axion mass range between 1.4 and 1.9 meV. In particular, a ^16 O _2 sample is brought to the temperature of 280 mK via buffer-gas cooling and then subjected to an external magnetic field; axion-driven transitions are eventually detected by resonance-enhanced multi-photon ionization spectroscopy.

Keywords

• axion dark matter
• buffer gas cooling
• laser spectroscopy