A microwave cavity search for axions*

The mass of the axion, a hypothetical elementary particle proposed as a solution to the ``strong-CP'' problem, is constrained by experimental and astrophysical considerations to a range where the axion is a very plausible cold dark matter candidate. This weakly-interacting dark matter particle could constitute the halo of our galaxy. In the Axion Dark Matter eXperiment (ADMX), halo axions flow through a microwave resonant cavity permeated by a static magnetic field, where some convert into microwave photons. These photons are detected by an ultralow-noise receiver. The ADMX Collaboration has set limits on the axion-to-photon coupling and/or local axion halo mass density for axion mass between 1.9 and 3.3 $\mu$eV. Consideration of phase-space structure of the axion flow, which predicts extremely sharp peaks in the axion kinetic-energy spectrum, improves the limit. Presently underway is an upgrade to the experiment, using SQUID RF amplifiers, which will improve the performance by more than a factor of 10.\\ Work done with L.D. Duffy, P. Sikivie, University of Florida, S.J. Asztalos, G. Carosi, D. Carter, C. Hagmann, D. Kinion, L.J. Rosenberg, K. van Bibber, LLNL, D.B. Yu, MIT, and R.F. Bradley, NRAO.