_version_ 1866915668297777152
author Wilson, Tatum Z.
Kimball, Derek F. Jackson
Afach, Samer
Bi, Jiexiao
Buchler, B. C.
Budker, Dmitry
Cervantes, Kaleb
Eby, Joshua
Figueroa, Nataniel L.
Folman, Ron
Gao, Jiawei
Gavilán-Martín, Daniel
Givon, Menachem
Grujić, Zoran D.
Guo, Hong
Hamilton, Paul
Hedges, M. P.
Huang, Zhejun
Kim, Dongok
Kim, Younggeun
Khamis, Sami S.
Klinger, Emmanuel
Kryemadhi, Abaz
Kukowski, Nina
Li, Jianjun
Lukasiewicz, Grzegorz
Masia-Roig, Hector
Padniuk, Michal
Palm, Christopher A.
Paranjape, Chaitanya
Park, Sun Yool
Peng, Xiang
Perez, Gilad
Preston, Rayshaun
Pustelny, Szymon
Ratzinger, Wolfram
Rosenzweig, Yossi
Ruimi, Ophir M.
Saputo, Amy
Scholtes, Theo
Segura, P. C.
Semertzidis, Yannis K.
Shin, Yun Chang
Stalnaker, Jason E.
Sulai, Ibrahim
Tandon, Dhruv
Vu, Ken
Wickenbrock, Arne
Wu, Teng
Yang, Yucheng
Zhao, Yixin
author_facet Wilson, Tatum Z.
Kimball, Derek F. Jackson
Afach, Samer
Bi, Jiexiao
Buchler, B. C.
Budker, Dmitry
Cervantes, Kaleb
Eby, Joshua
Figueroa, Nataniel L.
Folman, Ron
Gao, Jiawei
Gavilán-Martín, Daniel
Givon, Menachem
Grujić, Zoran D.
Guo, Hong
Hamilton, Paul
Hedges, M. P.
Huang, Zhejun
Kim, Dongok
Kim, Younggeun
Khamis, Sami S.
Klinger, Emmanuel
Kryemadhi, Abaz
Kukowski, Nina
Li, Jianjun
Lukasiewicz, Grzegorz
Masia-Roig, Hector
Padniuk, Michal
Palm, Christopher A.
Paranjape, Chaitanya
Park, Sun Yool
Peng, Xiang
Perez, Gilad
Preston, Rayshaun
Pustelny, Szymon
Ratzinger, Wolfram
Rosenzweig, Yossi
Ruimi, Ophir M.
Saputo, Amy
Scholtes, Theo
Segura, P. C.
Semertzidis, Yannis K.
Shin, Yun Chang
Stalnaker, Jason E.
Sulai, Ibrahim
Tandon, Dhruv
Vu, Ken
Wickenbrock, Arne
Wu, Teng
Yang, Yucheng
Zhao, Yixin
contents We report on a search for a gravitationally bound solar axion halo using data from the Global Network of Optical Magnetometers for Exotic physics searches (GNOME), a worldwide array of magnetically shielded atomic magnetometers with sensitivity to exotic spin couplings. Motivated by recent theoretical work suggesting that self-interacting ultralight axions can be captured by the Sun's gravitational field and thermalize into the ground state, we develop a signal model for the pseudo-magnetic fields generated by axion-proton gradient couplings in such a halo. The analysis focuses on the fifth GNOME Science Run (69 days, 12 stations), employing a cross-correlation pipeline with time-shifted daily modulation templates to search for the global, direction-dependent, monochromatic signal expected from a solar axion halo. No statistically significant candidate signals are observed. We set 95% confidence-level upper limits on the amplitude of the axion-induced pseudo-magnetic field over the frequency range 0.05 Hz to 20 Hz, translating to constraints on the linear and quadratic axion-proton couplings for halo densities predicted by gravitational capture models and for the maximum overdensities allowed by planetary ephemerides. In the quadratic coupling case, our limits surpass existing astrophysical bounds by over two orders of magnitude across much of the accessible parameter space.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_10221
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Search for a solar-bound axion halo using the Global Network of Optical Magnetometers for Exotic physics searches
Wilson, Tatum Z.
Kimball, Derek F. Jackson
Afach, Samer
Bi, Jiexiao
Buchler, B. C.
Budker, Dmitry
Cervantes, Kaleb
Eby, Joshua
Figueroa, Nataniel L.
Folman, Ron
Gao, Jiawei
Gavilán-Martín, Daniel
Givon, Menachem
Grujić, Zoran D.
Guo, Hong
Hamilton, Paul
Hedges, M. P.
Huang, Zhejun
Kim, Dongok
Kim, Younggeun
Khamis, Sami S.
Klinger, Emmanuel
Kryemadhi, Abaz
Kukowski, Nina
Li, Jianjun
Lukasiewicz, Grzegorz
Masia-Roig, Hector
Padniuk, Michal
Palm, Christopher A.
Paranjape, Chaitanya
Park, Sun Yool
Peng, Xiang
Perez, Gilad
Preston, Rayshaun
Pustelny, Szymon
Ratzinger, Wolfram
Rosenzweig, Yossi
Ruimi, Ophir M.
Saputo, Amy
Scholtes, Theo
Segura, P. C.
Semertzidis, Yannis K.
Shin, Yun Chang
Stalnaker, Jason E.
Sulai, Ibrahim
Tandon, Dhruv
Vu, Ken
Wickenbrock, Arne
Wu, Teng
Yang, Yucheng
Zhao, Yixin
Atomic Physics
Quantum Physics
We report on a search for a gravitationally bound solar axion halo using data from the Global Network of Optical Magnetometers for Exotic physics searches (GNOME), a worldwide array of magnetically shielded atomic magnetometers with sensitivity to exotic spin couplings. Motivated by recent theoretical work suggesting that self-interacting ultralight axions can be captured by the Sun's gravitational field and thermalize into the ground state, we develop a signal model for the pseudo-magnetic fields generated by axion-proton gradient couplings in such a halo. The analysis focuses on the fifth GNOME Science Run (69 days, 12 stations), employing a cross-correlation pipeline with time-shifted daily modulation templates to search for the global, direction-dependent, monochromatic signal expected from a solar axion halo. No statistically significant candidate signals are observed. We set 95% confidence-level upper limits on the amplitude of the axion-induced pseudo-magnetic field over the frequency range 0.05 Hz to 20 Hz, translating to constraints on the linear and quadratic axion-proton couplings for halo densities predicted by gravitational capture models and for the maximum overdensities allowed by planetary ephemerides. In the quadratic coupling case, our limits surpass existing astrophysical bounds by over two orders of magnitude across much of the accessible parameter space.
title Search for a solar-bound axion halo using the Global Network of Optical Magnetometers for Exotic physics searches
topic Atomic Physics
Quantum Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.10221