Results from the OSQAR photon-regeneration experiment: No light shining through a wall

A new method to amplify the photon-axion conversions in a magnetic field is proposed using a buffer gas at a specific pressure in a photon-regeneration experiment. As a first result, new bounds for mass and coupling constant for laboratory experiments aiming to detect any hypothetical scalars and pseudoscalars, which can couple to photons were obtained, excluding with 95% confidence level, the recently withdrawn PVLAS result.

Figure 1

Scheme of the experimental setup (not to scale) and principle of the OSQAR photon-regeneration experiment.

Figure 2

Measurement results after the filtering of cosmic signals. (a) The coupling of photons with pseudoscalar particles was probed with the polarization of the light parallel to the magnetic field. (b) The coupling of photons with scalar particles was probed with the polarization of the light perpendicular to the magnetic field.