Optical production and detection of dark matter candidates

The PVLAS collaboration is at present running, at the Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro of INFN, a very sensitive optical ellipsometer capable of measuring the small rotations or ellipticities which can be acquired by a linearly polarized laser beam propagating in vacuum through a transverse magnetic field (vacuum magnetic birefringence). The apparatus will also be able to set new limits on mass and coupling constant of light scalar/pseudoscalar particles coupling to two photons by both producing and detecting the hypothetical particles. The axion, introduced to explain parity conservation in strong interactions, is an example of this class of particles, all of which are considered possible dark matter candidates. The PVLAS apparatus consists of a very high finesse (>140 000), 6.4 m long, Fabry–Pérot cavity immersed in an intense dipolar magnetic field (∼6.5 T). A linearly polarized laser beam is frequency locked to the cavity and analysed, using a heterodyne technique, for rotation and/or ellipticity acquired within the magnetic field.