Laser experiments explore the hidden sector

Understand

Recently, the laser experiments BMV and GammeV, searching for light shining through walls, have published data and calculated new limits on the allowed masses and couplings for axion-like particles.

• In this note we point out that these experiments can serve to constrain a much wider variety of hidden-sector particles such as, e.g., minicharged particles and hidden-sector photons.
• The new experiments improve the existing bounds from the older BFRT experiment by a factor of two.
• Moreover, we use the new PVLAS constraints on a possible rotation and ellipticity of light after it has passed through a strong magnetic field to constrain pure minicharged particle models.