Experimental Constraints on the Axion Dark Matter Halo Density

Abstract

Most of the mass of the Milky Way galaxy is contributed by its halo, presumably in the form of non-interacting cold dark matter. The axion is a compelling cold dark matter candidate. We report results from a search which probes the local galactic halo axion density using the Sikivie RF cavity technique. Candidates over the frequency range 550$$ $\le$ f $\le$$$ 810 MHz (2.3$$ $μ$eV $\le$$$ m$_{a}$ $\le$ 3.4 $μ$eV) were investigated. The absence of a signal suggests that KSVZ axions contribute no more than 0.45 GeV/cm$^3$ of mass density to the local dark matter halo over this mass range.

10 pages (includes 3 figures)