Chameleon induced atomic afterglow

2010/09/06 by Philippe Brax, Clare Burrage
Physics and Astronomy · #Afterglow #Atomic and Subatomic Physics Research #Atomic beam #Atomic physics #Beam (structure) #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Field (mathematics) #Laser #Magnetic field #Optical cavity #Optics #Photon #Physics #Quantum mechanics #Standing wave #astro-ph.CO #hep-ph #hep-th

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.82.095014

published as Phys.Rev.D82:095014,2010 · 13 pages

arxiv created 2010/09/06 · openalex publication_date 2010/11/30 · arxiv updated 2010/12/23 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

The chameleon is a scalar field whose mass depends on the density of its environment. Chameleons are necessarily coupled to matter particles and will excite transitions between atomic energy levels in an analogous manner to photons. When created inside an optical cavity by passing a laser beam through a constant magnetic field, chameleons are trapped between the cavity walls and form a standing wave. This effect will lead to an afterglow phenomenon even when the laser beam and the magnetic field have been turned off, and could be used to probe the interactions of the chameleon field with matter.

Citations

• Hidden in the light: Magnetically induced afterglow from trapped chameleon fields
• Supernova brightening from chameleon-photon mixing
• Active Galactic Nuclei Shed Light on Axionlike Particles
• Constraints on cosmic opacity and beyond the standard model physics from cosmological distance measurements
• The galileon as a local modification of gravity
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• The Confrontation between General Relativity and Experiment
• Searching for chameleon-like scalar fields with the ammonia method