New Experimental Limit on Photon Hidden-Sector Paraphoton Mixing

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We report on the first results of a search for optical-wavelength photons mixing with hypothetical hidden-sector paraphotons in the mass range between 10^-5 and 10^-2 electron volts for a mixing parameter greater than 10^-7.

• This was a generation-regeneration experiment using the "light shining through a wall" technique in which regenerated photons are searched for downstream of an optical barrier that separates it from an upstream generation region.
• The new limits presented here are approximately three times more sensitive to this mixing than the best previous measurement.
• The present results indicate no evidence for photon-paraphoton mixing for the range of parameters investigated.