Speaker
Description
The International Axion Observatory (IAXO) is a new generation axion helioscope aiming at a sensitivity to the axion-photon coupling of gaγ a few×10-12GeV-1, i.e. 1-1.5 orders of magnitude beyond the one achieved by CAST, currently the most sensitive axion helioscope. The main elements of IAXO are a large superconducting toroidal magnet with eight bores, x-ray focusing optics and low background detectors. An intermediate helioscope on the way to IAXO, called BabyIAXO, with the aim of testing the new technology for the full scale experiment, is now being built and will be located at DESY. The design of all components and assembly procedures is very advanced. In spite of socio-political problems worldwide causing a delay for the fabrication of the magnet, we have made very significant progress and are confident that the magnet now be built in due time. Currently, we are discussing the strategy to perform important tests in the final BabyIAXO location at DESY on different instrumentation and mechanics in preparation to BabyIAXO while waiting for the magnet to
be in place. Once completed, BabyIAXO will be able to test gaγ down to 2×10-11 GeV-1, an improvement of the signal to noise ratio of a factor of 100 w.r.t. to CAST. In case of IAXO the SNR improvement would be about 4-5 orders of magnitude. In addition, already with BabyIAXO it will be possible to search for evidence of axion-electron and axion-nucleon coupling in the Sun. Moreover, installing cavities or antennas in the magnet bores will turn BabyIAXO into an axion haloscope, sensitive to dark matter axions in different mass ranges. We will discuss the physics reach of BabyIAXO and present the enhanced sensitivity for axion discovery
which will be possible to obtain with the full scale IAXO.
