OSQAR chameleon afterglow search experiment

M. Sulc (1) , P. Pugnat (2) , R. Ballou (3) , G. Deferne (4) , J. Hosek (5) , S. Kunc (1) , A. Siemko (4)

1 Technical University of Liberec
2 LNCMI-G - Laboratoire national des champs magnétiques intenses - Grenoble
3 NEEL - MagSup - Magnétisme et Supraconductivité
4 CERN - European Organization for Nuclear Research
5 CTU - Czech Technical University in Prague

OSQAR experiment has been extended to the quest of chameleon particles with environment-dependent mass from the search of a magnetic afterglow effect. OSQAR-CHASE (chameleon afterglow search) has been run in 2017 using one spare LHC dipole providing a 9 T transverse magnetic field with an 18.5 W laser and state-of-the art CCD detector. Experimental results with and without magnetic field were preliminary analyzed and no clear evidence for a photon-coupled chameleons was confirmed. The very weak false signals was observed with decay time 4300 s. It can be explained by decrease of dark current from initial higher values during CCD cooling in detection phase. Increasing of the sensitivity of the OSQAR-CHASE experiment over the previous GammeV reference experiment assumes that the present coupling constant limit can be reduced around factor of 4.

Mots clés: Chameleon particle; Magneto-optical experiment; LHC dipole magnet

Domaines: Physique des Hautes Energies - Expérience [hep-ex]

M. Sulc, P. Pugnat, R. Ballou, G. Deferne, J. Hosek, et al.. OSQAR chameleon afterglow search experiment. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, 2019, 936, pp.187-188. ⟨10.1016/j.nima.2018.11.065⟩. ⟨hal-01991788⟩