Detector Developments for the BabyIAXO Experiment

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Klaus Desch
• Subject Area: Nuclear and Elementary Particle Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Relativity, Fields
• Term: since 2026
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 558493085

The hypothesis of the existence of axions and axion-like particles has received significant attention in recent years, since those particles could not only explain the strong CP-problem but are also a viable candidate for Dark Matter. The temperatures in stars are sufficient to produce axion-like particles, allowing for a direct search for axions generated in the Sun using so-called helioscopes. The axions on earth are reconverted in strong magnetic fields to X-ray photons, which are subsequently detector. This principle forms the basis of the BabyIAXO experiment, which is currently being prepared to be installed at the DESY research center and will probe a completely unexplored parameter space of QCD axion models. Given that the magnetic design of the experiment is currently being concluded, the ongoing efforts on the detector developments for the BabyIAXO experiment will need to be intensified. Within this research proposal, we aim at the development and the construction of an active muon and neutrino veto-system and a detector setup employing the GridPix technology, yielding a fully operational detector system for the experiment.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants