Search for solar axion emission from 7Li and D(p,gamma)3He nuclear decays with the CAST gamma-ray calorimeter
hep-ex
/ Authors
CAST Collaboration, S. Andriamonje, S. Aune, D. Autiero, K. Barth, A. Belov, B. Beltran, H. Brauninger, J. M. Carmona, S. Cebrian
and 51 more authors
J. I. Collar, T. Dafni, M. Davenport, L. Di. Lella, C. Eleftheriadis, J. Englhauser, G. Fanourakis, E. Ferrer. Ribas, H. Fischer, J. Franz, P. Friedrich, T. Geralis, I. Giomataris, S. Gninenko, H. Gomez, M. Hasinoff, F. H. Heinsius, D. H. H. Hoffmann, I. G. Irastorza, J. Jacoby, K. Jakovcic, D. Kang, K. Konigsmann,
/ Abstract
We present the results of a search for a high-energy axion emission signal from 7Li (0.478 MeV) and D(p,gamma)3He (5.5 MeV) nuclear transitions using a low-background gamma-ray calorimeter during Phase I of the CAST experiment. These so-called "hadronic axions" could provide a solution to the long-standing strong-CP problem and can be emitted from the solar core from nuclear M1 transitions. This is the first such search for high-energy pseudoscalar bosons with couplings to nucleons conducted using a helioscope approach. No excess signal above background was found.