Light-Shining-through-a-Wall : searching for Axion-Like Particles with the OSQAR and ALPS II experiment
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Abstract
The existence of Axion-Like Particles (ALPs) is predicted by many extensions the Standard Model of particle physics. Depending on their particular properties, these particles might contribute to several so far unresolved questions of physics, such as the nature of dark matter or the anomalous cooling processes observed in stellar systems. Being both very weakly interacting and ultra light, ALPs might have evaded experimental observation so far.
This thesis describes the search for ALPs with the OSQAR and ALPS II experiment, both implementing the Light-Shining-through-a-Wall technique allowing for a generic model independent search probing a large range of the ALP parameter space. As a result, no evidence of ALPs has been observed with the OSQAR experiment, hence the following exclusion limits on the ALP-photon coupling were derived
g_{aγγ} < 3.2*10^{-8}/GeV and g_{aγγ} < 3.5*10^{-8}/GeV
for scalar and pseudoscalar ALPs of masses below 2*10^{-4} eV. These limits represent the most the stringent laboratory based constraints today. Further this work presents the contributions to the ALPS II experiment being currently commissioned. This includes the development of an efficient optical coupling of the detector to the experiment, a performant data acquisition and control system, and finally an extensible data analysis and simulation framework.