TY - JOUR
T1 - Constraints on Axion Mediated Dipole-Dipole Interactions
AU - Xu, Zitong
AU - Heng, Xing
AU - Tian, Guoqing
AU - Gong, Di
AU - Cong, Lei
AU - Ji, Wei
AU - Budker, Dmitry
AU - Wei, Kai
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2025 authors. Published by the American Physical Society. Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.
PY - 2025/5/9
Y1 - 2025/5/9
N2 - The search for axions sits at the intersection of solving critical problems in fundamental physics, including the strong CP problem in QCD, uncovering the nature of dark matter, and understanding the origin of the Universe's matter-antimatter asymmetry. The measurement of axion mediated spin-dependent interactions offers a powerful approach for axion detection. However, it has long been restricted to regions outside the "axion window"due to a significant trade-off: the need to effectively suppress the magnetic leakage from highly polarized spin sources while simultaneously detecting subfemtotesla level exotic physics signals at sub-decimeter-scale distances. In this work, we report new experimental results on axion mediated exotic spin-spin interactions using an iron-shielded SmCo5 spin source in combination with a specially designed self-compensation comagnetometer. Employing a composite shielding structure, we achieved a suppression of the magnetic field by up to 1011. This enabled us to establish new constraints on the coupling between electrons and neutrons, improving previous experimental limits by up to 10 000 times within the axion window. Furthermore, we also set the strongest constraints on the coupling between electrons and protons. The proposed method holds substantial potential not only for advancing the search for new physics beyond the standard model but also for enabling transformative applications in biological and chemical research.
AB - The search for axions sits at the intersection of solving critical problems in fundamental physics, including the strong CP problem in QCD, uncovering the nature of dark matter, and understanding the origin of the Universe's matter-antimatter asymmetry. The measurement of axion mediated spin-dependent interactions offers a powerful approach for axion detection. However, it has long been restricted to regions outside the "axion window"due to a significant trade-off: the need to effectively suppress the magnetic leakage from highly polarized spin sources while simultaneously detecting subfemtotesla level exotic physics signals at sub-decimeter-scale distances. In this work, we report new experimental results on axion mediated exotic spin-spin interactions using an iron-shielded SmCo5 spin source in combination with a specially designed self-compensation comagnetometer. Employing a composite shielding structure, we achieved a suppression of the magnetic field by up to 1011. This enabled us to establish new constraints on the coupling between electrons and neutrons, improving previous experimental limits by up to 10 000 times within the axion window. Furthermore, we also set the strongest constraints on the coupling between electrons and protons. The proposed method holds substantial potential not only for advancing the search for new physics beyond the standard model but also for enabling transformative applications in biological and chemical research.
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105004416437
U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.134.181801
DO - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.134.181801
M3 - 文章
C2 - 40408648
AN - SCOPUS:105004416437
SN - 0031-9007
VL - 134
JO - Physical Review Letters
JF - Physical Review Letters
IS - 18
M1 - 181801
ER -