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arXiv:2512.10221

Search for a solar-bound axion halo using the Global Network of Optical Magnetometers for Exotic physics searches

Tatum Z. Wilson, Derek F. Jackson Kimball, Samer Afach, Jiexiao Bi, B. C. Buchler, Dmitry Budker, Kaleb Cervantes, Joshua Eby, Nataniel L. Figueroa, Ron Folman, Jiawei Gao, Daniel Gavilán-Martín, Menachem Givon, Zoran D. Grujić, Hong Guo, Paul Hamilton, M. P. Hedges, Zhejun Huang, Dongok Kim, Younggeun Kim, Sami S. Khamis, Emmanuel Klinger, Abaz Kryemadhi, Nina Kukowski, Jianjun Li, Grzegorz Lukasiewicz, Hector Masia-Roig, Michal Padniuk, Christopher A. Palm, Chaitanya Paranjape, Sun Yool Park, Xiang Peng, Gilad Perez, Rayshaun Preston, Szymon Pustelny, Wolfram Ratzinger, Yossi Rosenzweig, Ophir M. Ruimi, Amy Saputo, Theo Scholtes, P. C. Segura, Yannis K. Semertzidis, Yun Chang Shin, Jason E. Stalnaker, Ibrahim Sulai, Dhruv Tandon, Ken Vu, Arne Wickenbrock, Teng Wu, Yucheng Yang, Yixin Zhao

physics.atom-phquant-phSubmitted Dec 11, 2025• Announced Dec 12, 2025
v1 · Dec 11, 2025v2 · Jul 2, 2026
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

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.

Journal reference
Phys. Rev. D 113, 115027 (2026)
DOI
10.1103/dd54-6vkw
Comments
22 pages, 18 figures

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