Experimental search for solar axions via coherent primakoff conversion in a germanium spectrometer

Abstract

Results are reported of an experimental search for the unique, rapidly varying temporal pattern of solar axions coherently converting into photons via the Primakoff effect in a single crystal germanium detector when axions are incident at a Bragg angle with a crystalline plane. The analysis of 1.94 kg yr of data from the 1 kg DEMOS detector in Sierra Grande, Argentina, yields a new laboratory bound by an axion-photon coupling of gaγγ < 2.7 × 10-9GeV-1, independent of axion mass up to ∼1keV. © 1998 The American Physical Society.