We present the operating principle and the first observing run of a novel kind of direct detector for axions and axionlike particles in the galactic halo. Sensitive to the polarisation rotation of linearly polarised laser light induced by an axion field, our experiment is the first detector of its kind collecting scientific data. We discuss our peak sensitivity of $1.51\times {10}^{-10}{\mathrm{GeV}}^{-1}$ (95% confidence level) to the axion-photon coupling strength in the axion mass range of 1.97–2.01 neV which is, for instance, motivated by supersymmetric grand-unified theories. We also report on effects that arise in our high-finesse in-vacuum cavity at an unprecedented optical continuous-wave intensity of $4.7\mathrm{MW}/{\mathrm{cm}}^2$. Our detector already belongs to the most sensitive direct searches within its measurement band, and our results pave the way towards surpassing the current sensitivity limits even of astrophysical observations in the mass range from ${10}^{-8}$ down to ${10}^{-16}\mathrm{eV}$ via quantum-enhanced laser interferometry, especially with the potential of scaling our detector up to kilometer length.

中文翻译：

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轴子激光干涉探测器 (LIDA) 的初步结果

我们介绍了一种新型直接探测器的工作原理和首次观测运行，用于探测银河晕中的轴子和类轴子粒子。我们的实验对轴子场引起的线偏振激光的偏振旋转敏感，是同类中第一个收集科学数据的探测器。我们讨论我们的峰值灵敏度$1.51\times {10}^{-10}{\mathrm{GeV}}^{-1}$（95% 置信水平）到 1.97-2.01 neV 轴子质量范围内的轴子-光子耦合强度，例如，这是由超对称大统一理论驱动的。我们还报告了我们的高精度真空腔在前所未有的光学连续波强度下产生的影响$4.7\mathrm{兆瓦}/{\mathrm{厘米}}^2$。我们的探测器已经属于其测量带内最灵敏的直接搜索，我们的结果为超越当前的灵敏度极限铺平了道路，即使是质量范围内的天体物理观测${10}^{-8}$向下${10}^{-16}\mathrm{电子伏特}$通过量子增强激光干涉测量，特别是有可能将我们的探测器扩展到千米长度。