CAST—CERN Axion Solar Telescope

CAST (CERN Axion Solar Telescope) is a helioscope looking for axions coming from the solar core to the Earth. The experiment, located at CERN, is based on the Primakoff effect and uses a magnetic field of 9 T provided by a decommissioned LHC magnet. CAST is able to follow the Sun during sunrise and sunset and therefore three X-ray detectors are mounted on both ends of the magnet waiting for a photon from axion-to-photon conversion due to Primakoff effect. During its first phase, which concluded in 2004, CAST has been looking for axions with masses up to 0.02 eV. The second phase did already start and first data were taken in December 2005. CASTʹs second phase manages to reestablish the coherence needed to scan for axions with masses up to 0.83 eV by using a buffer gas. This enables the experiment to look into the theoretical regions for axions.